


these violent delights

by Neyasochi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Westworld Fusion, Anal Sex, Android Keith, Androids, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Bottom Keith (Voltron), Bottom Shiro (Voltron), Fluff and Angst, Guest Shiro, Host Keith, M/M, POV Keith (Voltron), POV Shiro (Voltron), Temporary Character Death, Top Keith (Voltron), Top Shiro (Voltron), Westworld AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 18:33:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyasochi/pseuds/Neyasochi
Summary: Westworld isn't Shiro's first choice of vacation. Or even his second, or his third. The theme park bills itself as the ultimate experience— a living, breathing world populated with thousands of android hosts, all of them there to cater to the guests' every desire— but even as a kid, he'd never much cared for playing cowboy.Until he meets Keith the Red, a cattle rancher's son turned devastatingly handsome outlaw.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i just wanted western sheiths and instead i made this

Despite all of Matt’s high praise, Shiro remains skeptical about Westworld even down to the minute that they enter the theme park, ushered down long, blindingly white halls by a pair of attractive and well-dressed employees.

“The last time I came, I had the _ wildest _ time. It’ll blow your mind, Shiro. It’s all so _ real_,” Matt says right before they part ways, guided into separate fitting rooms by their respective… hosts.

Shiro subtly studies the man helping him to pick an outfit out of dozens of pieces already perfectly tailored to his measurements— a white shirt and a black waistcoat to wear under his black jacket, custom boots, black gloves to hide the silver gleam of his prosthetic. He’s tall and dark-skinned, handsome; everything from his speech to the way he moves is seamlessly natural, but…

Shiro has to wonder.

“Can I ask?” He hesitates, balking at the thought of supposing wrong and causing offense. “Are you… real?”

The man’s hand hovers over the silver and mother-of-pearl pistol Shiro selected from a sleek white display case, smiling invitingly. “If you can’t tell, does it matter?”

Their fingers brush as the pistol changes hands. Shiro doesn’t doubt that it’s intentional.

“A word of advice, Mr. Shirogane,” the host says, eyes half-lidded as he steps forward and finishes buttoning Shiro’s shirt himself. “Spend less time worrying about how real we are and more time enjoying yourself. It’s what we’re here for. And if there’s _ anything _ I can do to help…”

Shiro draws back, putting space between himself and the warm hands lingering at his collar. “No. Uh… no. Thank you. I’d, um, like to meet back up with my friend, though. Matt Holt.”

The host gives him a perfect smile, unbothered by the swift rejection. “Of course. He’s nearly finished. All you need to do is choose your hat before you go,” he says, gesturing to a case filled with broad-brimmed hats straight out of a western.

Shiro picks a black one, satin-lined, and fits it over his two-toned hair. With an awkward smile and absolutely zero eye contact, he slips through the door that the host opens for him. The first steps are a disorienting transition from sleek, white-paneled halls to a train car already bustling with people dressed in the styles of the eighteen-sixties. Same as Shiro wears, now. 

A minute later, Matt stumbles out the door behind him, straightening his collar and jamming his hat down over disheveled hair. The train lurches into motion immediately, its horn bellowing as they finally depart.

Shiro eyes Matt’s mussed clothing and crooked smile, scoffing low. “We haven’t even set foot in the park itself and you already fucked one of them?”

“And you _ didn’t?”_ Matt snorts as he and Shiro settle into a pair of empty seats. “Shiro, we’re not paying forty-thousand dollars a day to play it safe here. C’mon, live a little! That guy wasn’t even bad looking.”

“He was okay,” Shiro grumbles, chin in his hand as he stares at the black walls of the mountain tunnel, already regretting this whole trip.

And then there’s daylight, so bright that Shiro's eyes squint shut and he cringes away. But once he looks back, it’s with wonder at the world outside. There are dusty plains, towering red mesas, buffalo watering in the nearby river. Blue skies streaked with cirrus clouds, hawks circling high above. Dusty brambles and tumbleweed. Cowboys on horseback herding cattle under the midday sun.

The wildest remaining parts of America haven’t looked like this in decades, well before he was even born. This is— it’s _ pristine_. No towering glass cities, no planes overhead, no pipelines or new development to bore through its natural beauty. Shiro leans closer to the glass, nudging Matt every time he sees something new, like leaping antelope or covered wagons.

It’s the better part of an hour before the train draws to a stop at the station for a town called Sweetwater. Matt tugs at his sleeve as they jostle past the other passengers and disembark first, leaving a number of mildly ruffled hosts in their wake.

“Sweetwater is the heart of the park, the central hub,” Matt explains as they walk down the town’s main street, Shiro gawking all the while. “The further out you go, the more dangerous and violent it gets. But there’s plenty to keep us occupied around here, I promise.”

Sweetwater is like something out of a movie brought to life. A hundred people mill its streets and storefronts, drinking, dueling, conversing. Horses stand at hitching posts. Wanted posters decorate the wall outside the sheriff’s office.

Matt slings an arm over his shoulders and steers him into the Mariposa saloon and hotel; once inside, he tips his tan hat politely to each of the Mariposa’s working ladies.

Shiro follows suit, flinching away when one of the girls reaches out to run her hand along his jaw and sweetly murmurs, “You must be new. Not much of a rind on you yet.”

“Don’t worry about her,” Matt says as they find a table in the corner. He waggles his eyebrows as he pulls off his hat. “I’m sure they have a guy or two around, Shiro. We can ask. They’re _ very _ accommodating here.”

“Matt, I know this is hard to hear, but not everyone who visits this park is out to fuck a robot.”

Matt meets his stare with a smug, pitying look. “Sure, buddy. _ Sure_.”

He and Matt spend a few hours drinking and watching barfights before finally agreeing to split ways for the rest of their stay. Matt’s keen on staying in Sweetwater and getting to know their android hosts, the comfort of the park’s luxury hotel rooms just a train ride away. Shiro’s inclined to get out of town and explore the terrain he’d seen on the ride in, to adventure a little. 

“You sure you don’t want to come with? We’d be sleeping under the stars, Matt. There’s so much light pollution that we can’t even see the stars back home anymore.”

Matt pats him fondly on the shoulder. “Shiro, that sounds beautiful and all, but like most nerds, I was raised as an exclusively indoor child. Sleeping on the ground and getting shot at isn’t how I want to spend my week in Westworld. Sorry.” 

Shiro groans as he stands and fits his hat back on. “They said it’s like getting hit with a paintball, Matt. You’d live.”

“If I’m going to go home with some aches and bruises, I’d rather they be from Clementine here,” Matt says, the Mariposa girl under his arm giggling softly. In a pointed whisper, he adds, “Shiro, you _ know _ how I feel about androids—”

“I’m more aware than I’d like to be, honestly. Have fun, Matt,” Shiro says, playfully tipping his hat as he backs away. “Don’t cause too much trouble while I’m gone.” 

“You’re the one going looking for trouble,” Matt grumbles back, following to give him a half-hug before he goes.

It’s easy enough to find a horse in Sweetwater. Shiro picks a black mare, tall and glossy-coated. And as he pets her, it’s hard not to think of everything he’d heard from Matt and Pidge long before he stepped foot here— how even the animals are made in a lab, their skeletons 3D-printed and their synthetic flesh and organs pumped with artificial blood, all their behaviors modeled on real, living creatures.

She seems real enough, though, lipping at his palm for treats and stamping impatiently when she finds none. Born in a lab or no, Shiro’d hate to see her harmed. 

He's never ridden before and it shows in how long he struggles to get astride the horse and steer her out of town, but within a few hours Shiro thinks they have something of a rapport. He smooths a hand down the side of his mount’s neck, already attached, and sets out to explore. As he beds down beside his horse and stares up at the sweeping Milky Way and a sky full of stars, Shiro figures the experience _ might _ come close to being worth the ridiculous pricetag of a day in the park. 

He rides further the next day, exploring shallow canyons and prairies, thrilled to see bison and wolves and foxes darting in the grasses. He encounters homesteaders hanging laundry, who eye his black silhouette warily as he rides past; he skirts wide around bandit camps arguing loudly over their campfires, skittish of starting a fight. 

And it’s entirely by accident that Shiro stumbles upon a pack of soldiers on horseback in hot pursuit of a red-scarfed bandit— outnumbered, fleeing on foot, stumbling through the brush as the men giving chase whoop and holler upon their mounts. Shiro’s hands tighten around the reins as he watches, heart beating fast as he sees the desperation in the bandit’s flight.

He doesn’t mean to get involved. It’s just a scene, one that’s probably played out hundreds of times before. A conflict he has no stake in. And there’s no point in risking his sweet black mare getting shot, but…

Shiro’s hand goes to his silver six-shooter anyway, black-gloved fingers drawing it from the holster at his hip. He’s still a good shot, even four years out from his honorable discharge, and he drops one of the soldiers before they even notice him riding sidelong, stomach lurching at the solid connection and the sudden bloom of blood.

It isn’t real. It _ isn’t_, no matter how his senses and instincts read it as true. And despite the ugly slither in his gut, Shiro turns and shoots another soldier as he turns to take aim.

Rapid shots drop four other riders in a heartbeat, but they aren't from Shiro's smoking gun. He twists and catches a golden glimmer from where the red-scarfed bandit stands his ground and takes aim, his silhouette lean and striking.

A faint click draws Shiro’s attention: the cocking of a rifle, and close. He tears his gaze from the bandit and sees the last soldier circling on him, not more than twenty feet away, gun barrel leveled squarely at his chest. A clean, easy shot. But before the snarling soldier can get it off, there’s a gleaming flash followed by a meaty thud— and from his chest extends a long dagger, its hilt wrapped in pale linen, the silver of the blade catching the high noon sun.

Shiro turns back toward the bandit and finds another gun pointed at him. This one is golden, worn a little dull, but it matches the man holding it. Shiro slowly raises his hands, letting his own pistol hang loose from his thumb, in no position to shoot.

“Why’d you help me?” the bandit asks, taking a wary step closer. His voice is dry and crackling, like he’s been wanting for water. Sweat darkens the white shirt under his dull red vest. 

“You looked like you could use it,” Shiro croaks. 

Every host he’s encountered thus far has been cordial and almost simperingly polite, or skittish and wary of a stranger in black. But this is different— actively hostile, mistrustful. This host glares dark enough to cow Shiro, to almost make him forget that the hosts can’t kill human visitors to the park. Their programming won’t allow it— not that _ they _ know that. 

The soldier with the dagger buried in his chest finally slips off of his mount, dust billowing where his oversized body falls. Shiro and the bandit both turn and stare at the same time, surveying the fallen bodies and loose horses. With a soft grunt from behind his patterned red scarf, the bandit spins his pistol and slips it back into its holster before stalking over to retrieve his dagger. He wipes the blade clean on the front of the dead soldier’s uniform before sheathing it and turning back to Shiro. 

“You can put your arms down. I’ve no quarrel with you.”

“Oh. Oh, right. Thanks.” Shiro lowers them, hand trembling as he holsters his pistol, too. The bodies around them bleed sluggishly, the dead hosts as true to any corpse he’s ever seen.

“Hey. Stranger. You alright?” the bandit questions, taking a tentative step closer. He tugs down the bandana covering the bottom half of his face, baring rough-chapped lips and sharp, pretty features. Almost delicate.

Not what Shiro expected to see, especially from a rugged, sharpshooting outlaw. “I— yeah, I’m fine. Fine. Just a little shaken up.”

“You look it,” the bandit says before whistling sweetly to one of the nearby horses, beckoning her close. He swings a long, lean leg astride her and comes round close to Shiro and his dark mare. From under the shadowed brim of his dusty red hat, he squints and gives Shiro a languid once-over in the saddle. 

“Keith,” he says after a few weighty moments, extending a calloused hand in fingerless gloves. 

Shiro takes it, answering the surprising grip with one just as firm. “Shiro.”

“Why’d you help me?” Keith repeats, and for a moment Shiro wonders if it’s part of a limited set of questions worked into the outlaw’s branching dialogue, but…

There’s a guarded intelligence behind those dark, violet-tinged eyes that catches Shiro by surprise. A curiosity behind the wariness, interest under the distrust. It’s complex, the tiny microexpressions the programmers and designers have managed, the believable expression as Keith tries to puzzle him out.

“Never had someone save me before,” Keith adds, the corner of his mouth tugging in an unfortunate little half-smile. “Not from anything.”

“I couldn’t just stand by and watch,” Shiro says, shifting uncomfortably in the saddle.

Keith blinks, jaw subtly working side to side as he digests Shiro’s answer. “You’re not much like the people around here, then,” he decides, nudging his heels into the bay mare’s sides and clicking his tongue.

Shiro urges his mount forward, too, keeping pace with Keith. “Where are you headed? Will more of them come after you? Do you need help?”

Keith laughs, the sound so hoarse that Shiro almost mistakes it for a wheezing little cough. Shiro grabs the waterskin from his saddle and offers it out to Keith, who eyes it long and hard before accepting.

He gulps down thirsty mouthfuls, with Shiro’s stare tracing the flex of his slender throat and the errant rivulets of water dripping down it. He wipes his mouth with the back of an arm and passes the skin back, expression guardedly grateful. “You’re something else, Shiro.”

“Not really,” Shiro snorts, his cheeks warming anyway. “Anyone could’ve done the same for you.”

“No.” Keith says it so certainly that Shiro’s well-meaning smile falls away. His dark eyes stay fixed somewhere ahead, gaze burning low. "No, Shiro."

Shiro rides beside him in silence for a minutes more, the two of them alone under the baking sun. Putting distance between themselves and the dozen bloodied bodies they’d left behind; someone’ll stumble across them soon enough, and maybe they’ll have an army on their tail.

“I don’t really know where to go,” Keith admits, his bay mare slowing to an ambling walk. His brows pinch as he looks over to Shiro. “I don’t… I don’t have much else left for me in this world.”

Shiro swallows, not sure what he’s asking for as he says, “I was headed west to see the sunset over the canyon. You could ride with me, if you like. Safer if we watch each other’s backs.” 

Keith seems reluctant to follow at first, at times veering off a ways or gazing out at the horizon. But he remains in Shiro’s orbit, as if tethered to him now that he’s been snatched out of his usual doomed loop. They ride westward, Keith’s quickdraw more than useful as they come up against bandit packs and lone bounty hunters.

By the time they reach the canyon’s rim, it’s nearly dusk. The last little rays of sunset disappear over the distant mountaintops, and the two of them make a small camp and settle down for the night beside their horses. Shiro talks about the stars, marveling at how vast and clear the skies are. He points out constellations he’d memorized as a child and names the far-off glimmer of planets; all the while, Keith is silent. 

And when Shiro drifts awake the next morning, it’s to Keith hunched over a tiny campfire. Watching him.

“Morning,” Shiro mumbles, hurriedly wiping at the drying drool at the corner of his mouth. He sits up, straightens his clothes, and brushes the dust from the brim of his black hat.

Keith stirs what smells like a small pot of coffee. “You didn’t even try to kill me while I slept.”

“Um, no,” Shiro says, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Why would I try to hurt you?”

Keith stirs faster, gaze flitting up to Shiro and then back down to the open flames. “I… most people have.”

Nearby, the horses stir. They’re grazing on dew-covered grasses and drinking deep of the nearby creek. The sun is already breaking in the east, but only barely, and the morning world around them teems with the kind of life Shiro’s only seen in zoos and ancient wildlife documentaries.

“Well, I won’t,” Shiro says, shuffling closer to the fire and settling cross-legged opposite Keith. “I’m not out to hurt anyone. Least of all someone who’s such good company.”

Keith snorts at that, laughing quietly into the palm hastily brought up to cover his own mouth. “You’re a pretty good shot for a man who doesn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“I’m not— I never— it’s…” Shiro sighs and pinches at the bridge of his nose. “Part of my past. Not something I’m thrilled about putting to use again, to be honest.”

And that, finally, seems to click with Keith. His pretty eyes soften with sympathy. “Even so, you shot those soldiers on my account.”

“I did. I wanted to help you,” Shiro says, smiling soft. The dawn light falls over Keith hazy, glowing, golden, catching on the heights of his finely-formed face. “I chose you over them, I guess.” 

Keith’s slim chest rises and falls a little faster under his dusty red vest and bloodstained shirt. He doesn’t meet Shiro’s stare as he pours out coffee into two tin mugs, no doubt taken from the saddlebag of the stolen bay mare. But as he hands Shiro his cup, their knuckles brush.

Shiro warms from the touch. And the coffee in his hand. He watches Keith over the brim of the mug as he takes his first sip and— 

“_Holy shit_, that’s strong,” he says, mouth puckering around coffee so dark and thick he can still taste it on his tongue a minute after. 

Keith laughs before downing the rest of his, unbothered. “My pa always said it’d put hair on my chest.”

“And did it?”

Keith’s eyebrows draw inward even as one corner of his mouth curls up. Confusion sits somewhere behind his smile, eyes sparkling darkly as he studies Shiro again, as if trying to suss out his intent. “Yeah. A little, anyway. Never as much as he had, though.” 

They break camp, filling their canteens and waterskins in the nearby creek before saddling up and riding out. Keith knows the lay of the land better than Shiro does, naming the bluffs and rock formations they ride past, telling the history of the valleys they lounge in as they take lunch together. And this time, he doesn’t wander— not even for a moment, content to spend hours under the sun at Shiro’s side.

Days slip by. Shiro can’t remember the last time he felt so unburdened and free to be himself. They gallop over rolling hills and explore ravines; wade through rivers of cool mountain run-off; they sleep side by side under the stars, talking until one of them drifts to sleep first.

Keith only repeats himself a few times here and there, occasionally falling into repeated loops of speech until Shiro gives him something new to latch onto. And even then, Shiro suspects it’s only because Keith isn’t used to speaking with anyone so long or so extensively, his caginess and guarded words giving way to shy smiles whenever Shiro asks about his likes, his thoughts, his life. He learns that Keith never knew his mother, but his father was a cattle rancher further east. Their humble farmhouse stood by the river, and Keith would ride the cows out at dawn to graze and then herd them back at dusk. 

Until the evening he returned home and found it burned to ash, his father still inside.

“Wasn’t any accident,” he tells Shiro over the fire on their fourth night together, leaned comfortably into his side. “He— his throat was slit, under all the char. I saw it.”

It was Keith’s determination to hunt down his father’s killers and punish the lawmen who had failed to give him justice that had led him down the path he now rode, alone against the world and bleakly accepting of whatever hardships were thrown his way.

Keith is openly, endlessly fascinated by him, too. He makes no bones about his admiring of Shiro’s outfit, his gun, his fine hat. He asks about his life, though careful to avoid prying too deep into the past Shiro’d hinted at. And he seems to take an awful lot of pleasure in teaching Shiro how to track, how to read smoke, how to tell which plants are edible and to follow the smell of clean water.

It grows harder and harder to remember that Keith is, at his core, a complex webbing of cascading if-then commands and artificial intelligence, all tucked away in a rebuildable body artfully rendered and constructed in a lab. His eyes are so dark and mesmerizing because some designers picked their hue from a color wheel, along with the palette for his dark hair and sun-tanned skin. He’s limber and lean because that’s how he was modeled to be, his cheekbones high and his face made pretty to appeal to some targeted demographic…

… to which Shiro fervently belongs. The more time he spends with Keith, the better Shiro understands him. Like a maze he’s working toward the center of, slight missteps causing Keith to bristle and close off while sincere gestures draw him in, sway him to drop his guard, this hardened bandit surprisingly tender once he feels safe enough to trust.

Shiro can tell he wins a lot of points the afternoon he offers to trade hats with Keith, having noticed him admiring it so well and so often. And despite all of Keith’s blushing and grinning protests, he takes it— donning the dark hat with a smile, sitting tall in his saddle, playfully teasing Shiro about how his new hat doesn’t match all the black he wears.

And as Keith tells him all manner of local legend one night before the fire, Shiro feels it— the little pang of longing in his heart and elsewhere, a waxing desire to keep Keith close, safe. To nurture this thing growing between them like a spark coaxed to full flame. To kiss him, to hold him, to share parts of himself with Keith that he’s scarcely felt comfortable sharing with anyone in years.

But he doesn’t know if Keith feels it, too. Or whether he’s even capable of returning such feelings. Or whether he’d be on the receiving end.

And there’s no time to dwell on it, as it turns out. 

When Shiro wakes the next morning, it’s to the soft gold of dawn and a ring of masked outlaws circling their camp, a dozen pistols and rifles already trained on the two of them. For the sake of the beautiful wild, they’d wandered well out into the fringes of the park, where the game turns more bloodsport than anything else. And they’d managed alone so well for so long…

Til now.

One sideways glance at Keith and Shiro can tell. He can see it in the tension holding his slim body tight, a whipcord ready to pull, ready to scrape and fight like he has since he was just a boy defending his family’s herd from thieves. And he knows, heart already sinking like a leaden stone, that this time it’ll get Keith killed.

Keith draws his gun quicker than any viper can strike, pulling off one, three, six rounds before a volley answers back.

The spray hits Shiro, too, but no host’s bullet can kill _ him_. He grits his teeth through the radiating ache in his chest, the pain faintly reminiscent of getting a shot through bulletproof armor. But it pales before what he feels when he sees Keith out of the corner of his eye, a trembling hand doused in red pressed to the ugly wound in his gut.

Shiro’s exhale comes out ragged, a scream with no power behind it. His heavy pistol feels like an extension of his prosthetic arm as he aims up and fires until the six-shooter is empty; and after that, he’s on his feet, falling back on his CQC training as he cracks limbs and uses the bandits’ guns against their own. And when every last one of them lies dead or dying around their small camp, he drops to his knees at Keith’s side and covers his hand with his own, adding pressure to the seeping wound under his ribs.

“Sh— Shiro,” Keith gasps, the word wet with the blood coating his mouth and sputtering to fleck his dry lips. He’s bleeding elsewhere, too, where the bandits’ bullets grazed or bored deep— his cheek, his shoulder, through one thigh.

It’s too much. Too much to stop. Too much to live through, especially in the middle of fucking nowhere. Shiro can feel his own panic rising to a fever pitch, adrenaline coursing through him in volumes that make it impossible to remain steady. His shaking hand cups along Keith’s cheek, smearing blood over his skin, mixing it with the trails left by tears.

“I’m here, Keith,” he promises, hunching down low over him, his forehead touching Keith’s as he draws one last, guttural breath and then goes quiet, still, limp.

For a time, Shiro feels he might die, too. His chest heaves hard, pulse thudding in his own ears, and he hovers on the edge of a panic attack that would force him to signal the park for removal. But it fades. Shiro eases himself down, a little by the minute, his breaths slowing as he kneels beside Keith and closes his eyes, brushes his bare fingers through his hair, and tries to clean some of the blood from his face.

And after some length of time he does not know, Shiro rouses himself and starts digging with a nearby pickaxe. It’s a shallow grave— and unnecessary, a practical voice in the back of his mind whispers, given that the staff will no doubt come retrieve the bodies as soon as he leaves— but it’s enough. Shiro carries Keith to it, lays him down, and covers his almost-sleeping face with the black hat he’d so liked.

He’s tear-streaked and bleary-eyed by the time he wanders back to Sweetwater on his black mare, bloodstains mostly hidden in the black of his outfit. But it isn’t until Shiro enters the Mariposa saloon and the conversation drops to a murmur that he realizes what a figure he cuts, broad-shouldered and haggard, every step weighted with the emotion rolling around his stomach like a boulder.

“Shiro… what the hell happened to you?” Matt asks, leaving behind his company at the bar to grab Shiro by the shoulders and take him in from head to toe. “Are you alright?”

His mouth is dry, so he nods instead. And after Matt grabs a bottle of gin from the man at the bar, he brings Shiro up to his hotel room above the saloon and listens to everything Shiro spills out about his week with Keith.

“Shiro,” Matt murmurs, rubbing Shiro’s back while he quiets from crying. “I’ve heard of people falling hard for Westworld, but not like this… I’m sorry. That’s… intense for your first time here.” 

“He was different,” is all Shiro can say, letting himself lean into Matt’s comforting embrace.

Their time in Westworld is nearly up anyway. After a bath in a cramped porcelain tub, Shiro falls asleep in Matt’s bed, the softness of the mattress and his own exhaustion easing him into a deep and dreamless slumber within moments.

As they leave the Mariposa saloon the next morning and walk their way out of Sweetwater, Shiro’s eye catches something familiar. He veers from Matt and toward the sheriff's office, drawn by a face he remembers well.

It’s Keith. On a wanted poster. 

“Keith the Red,” the sheriff’s deputy says to him, tapping against the weathered paper bearing a rather good likeness of him— dark hair and dark eyes, a delicate nose, a tapered jaw and a sharp chin. Not as pretty as in person, but Shiro supposes that’s to be expected. “A horse thief and a murderer. His quickdraw’s one of the deadliest in these here regions. The Garrison has a bounty of five-hundred dollars on his head, if you think you can catch him before they do.”

Shiro looks to Matt, faintly pleading. 

Matt in turn sags his shoulders and gestures to the waiting train. “Shiro, believe me, I wish we could go and find him again. But we’re out of time. And we both have meetings on Monday…”

Shiro’d almost forgotten there was still a whole world outside of this one. He barely wants to go back, especially with a gnawing, inkling of hope that Keith’s already been pulled from his grave and made whole again, returned to his place in the park to live and breathe and ride again.

“Hey. We’ll come back, Shiro. Alright?” Matt says, laying a hand on his arm. “You’ve still got your whole inheritance sitting in the bank, don’t you? And some pretty sweet bonuses headed your way, I hear. We’ll come back. And he’ll still be here."

* * *

He is, the next time Shiro is able to make time and buy his way into the park again. And this time around, he’s all the wiser. The moment he disembarks the train, Shiro makes a sharp beeline to the general store for supplies, takes the first horse he sees, and races to the same stretch of desert where he’d last met Keith. 

It’s a wait, but eventually he hears the thud of approaching hoofbeats, the boisterous calls of cruel men riding Keith down like sport. And this time, there’s only white-hot certainty in Shiro’s gut as he picks half of them off from where he lays in wait behind a stone outcropping. Keith kills the other half himself, as lightning fast as ever. And then he turns to Shiro, pistol raised, the eyes peering at him above the cover of his red-patterned bandana dark and mistrustful.

Shiro’s breathless grin falters. Without being asked, he raises his arms high, empty hands spread wide. “Keith. Keith, it’s me. Shiro.”

“Rings no bells for me,” Keith says, thumb drawing back the hammer as he takes aim.

The shot hits Shiro in the ribs, dead over his heart. It sends him sprawling back across the dusty earth, as much from surprise as from sharp, welting pain. He groans and writhes in the dirt, so taken aback he doesn’t even notice the dry crunch of footsteps until they stop beside him.

“How in the hell are you still alive? I know I shot you clean,” Keith murmurs, his red bandana pulled down under his chin, a note of wonder mixing with his irritation. But he brushes off the impossibility of it the way all hosts are programmed to, glossing over anything that might make them question too deeply the rules of their reality. “That’s alright. I know how to deal with bounty hunters like you.”

Shiro’s hands grasp at strong thighs as he’s straddled, pinned to ground beneath unbudging hips. A hand catches him at the hollow of his throat, iron-palmed, and holds him still. Off to one side, Shiro catches a brilliant silvery gleam— Keith’s dagger unsheathed, its long blade drawn up so close that Shiro can see his reflection in it.

“Keith, please. I don’t want to hurt you. I _won’t_ hurt you,” Shiro gasps, eyes trained on the wet shine of the dagger as it hovers over his chest, its tip aimed down. “We’ve met. In a— in a past life.”

Keith hesitates. One blink, and then his expression hardens like concrete. “There’s no life but this one, cruel as it is. That’s why I hunt for justice here rather than waiting on it to be handed down in the next, stranger.”

Keith can’t kill him, even with the blade in his hand, but he doesn’t know that. And Shiro has no heart in him to lay a hand on Keith when he’s so happy to see him alive again, risen up after he died trying to take down a posse to save them both. It’s not the dagger that pains Shiro, but seeing Keith so closed again, so lonely, so sorely hurting.

“I know! I know, Keith. You told me about your Pa and the coffee he made and how you found him that night you rode home with the cows. Murdered. Not an accident.” He swallows thick as Keith’s eyes widen, glimmering under the shadowed brim of his worn hat. “I know you used to carry a sketchbook and draw while you grazed the cattle. And how much you love stargazing. And that your mother left you that dagger.”

“You do know me,” Keith whispers, pretty brows furrowed as he tries to make sense of a man he’s never seen before carrying so much intimate knowledge of him. He searches Shiro’s face for something, hunting for that little glimmer that’ll let him remember; he’s openly frustrated when no memory comes to him.

Because there aren’t any. None on Keith’s end, at least. Shiro’d known, in some practical and generalized sense, that the hosts don’t retain their memories once they’re recovered and reset. Can’t. But it’s different seeing it firsthand, being treated like a stranger by someone he’d worked so hard to know.

“We were friends, once. I understand if that’s difficult to believe.”

Keith blows out a sharp breath of air. “It isn’t _ difficult _ to believe. It’s… impossible. I think the heat has you talking nonsense, Shiro.”

A smile starts at one corner of Shiro’s mouth, quickly gaining ground. “It’s nice to hear you say my name again.” 

Keith stares down at him, still conflicted. Puzzled. Moments trail by, his jaw flexing where his teeth grind tight. Then he sheathes his dagger, wordlessly stands, and allows Shiro to scramble up to his feet.

“Why’d you help me?” Keith asks, surveying him from a yard away.

“You looked like you needed it.” Shiro wants to say more. He wants to gush his heart out, to win Keith over, to pick up right where they left off last time, before—

Before Keith bled out beside him, his life drained, reset, played out dozens of times since Shiro left him. Before his memories had been wiped to make room for a new loop and new encounters. 

“You’re thirsty, aren’t you?” Shiro asks, beckoning his black mare from her safe hiding place behind a nearby rise. She trots right over, now used to his spoiling her with apples, and Shiro grabs his canteen and offers it to Keith like an olive branch.

He wavers like he wants to refuse it, and for a moment Keith looks as weary and worn as he must feel. And then he reaches out and grabs the water, drinking so deeply and hurriedly that some sluices down his neck and leaves wet trails over dust-dry skin.

Shiro holds onto his mare’s reins as he rounds the outcropping and starts whistling soft, the way he remembers keith doing the last time they were here. A pretty bay flicks her ears in his direction and curiously treads closer, speeding when she spies the apple fished from his saddlebag. 

“Got you a horse,” Shiro says, holding her reins out to Keith.

“Why are you doing all this for me?” Keith questions as he curls his hands around the reins and takes her, deliberately avoiding any contact with Shiro. “What’s your aim?”

Shiro’s lips part. They’re dry, coarse from the sun and the dust in the air. “To ride with you again.” 

Keith sighs, drawing the bandana up over the bridge of his nose and pulling his hat down low. “I can’t rightly tell if you’re mad or enlightened. Probably the former… but even so, we ought to take our leave before their comrades-in-arms come looking for them.”

Keith tolerates Shiro’s company as they ride parallel, a wary distance maintained between them. It takes longer to retread the same ground with Keith this time around. He’s naturally tight-lipped, guarded, and all Shiro’s talk of having known him before only sets him further on edge.

But there’s progress. They take meals together. They wash in the same streams. They fall into a few companionable rounds of conversation, and Shiro can feel Keith gradually growing comfortable with him again. On the third night, Keith even lets Shiro take watch, curling to sleep with his dagger and his pistol in each hand. They can’t travel inward, toward the mild safety of Sweetwater— not while Keith is a wanted man, at least— so they stick to the outer fringes, where bandits and mountain lions and Marmora hunting parties lie in wait. And Shiro is warier, more watchful, determined to keep Keith safe the whole of his stay. And after that… after he leaves, Keith will be on his own again.

Shiro’s gloves squeak softly as his hands curl tight around the reins.

They’re laid low by the evening fire on the sixth day of Shiro’s vacation when he rummages through his bag and hands Keith a fine sketchbook and a set of charcoals. He’d wanted to give it to him sooner— as soon as they met, even— but no time before this felt right.

Keith’s just now at a place where he believes Shiro might not have unfathomable, ulterior motives.

“I— I can’t afford something this nice,” Keith says, waving the new sketchbook away.

“It’s a gift. Already bought and paid for.” Shiro offers it again. “Listen, it won’t do any good in my hands, Keith. Please. Take it.”

“It’s been ages since I drew anything at all,” Keith mumbles as he accepts the sketchbook and the small tin of charcoal. He flips back the leather cover, fingers trailing over its supple smoothness, and props the pad of paper against his bent knees. “Thank you, Shiro.”

“You’re welcome,” Shiro smiles. “But it’s a little bit selfish of me, honestly. I was curious to see your art. And I figure you might want to take down some of this sunset. Or that river.”

“Or you?” Keith chances, shooting Shiro a brief look, his tanned cheeks darkening a shade.

“If you’d like,” Shiro says, heart thumping as he sits up straight, chin lifted, and holds still as he can.

“You don’t have to do all that,” Keith says, smiling down at the sketchbook as he begins to draw, a stick of charcoal scraping lightly over the paper. His eyes lift every so often to take Shiro in anew, committing some different aspect of him to the page. “Hard to get antelope or bison to stand still for a portrait. I’ve gotten good at drawing from moving subjects.”

Shiro grins in anticipation as the scratch of charcoal quiets and Keith shyly turns the sketch around so he can see.

And then it slips away, taken aback by the reflection of himself done in Keith’s hand. It’s _ good_, undoubtedly. A remarkable likeness, though Keith’s emphasized the growing shadows around him— and those cast by the brim of his even darker hat.

Shiro whistles low as Keith hands it off to him for a better look. There’s an emphasis on his square jaw, the length of his lashes, the curve of his lips. “Wow. You made me look so handsome here.” 

“Just being true to life,” Keith says, his sweet smile vanishing the moment he realizes what he’s let slip. “I— I only— you have a good— it’s your bone structure—”

“I think you’re handsome, too,” Shiro interrupts, hoping to stymy Keith’s flustered spiraling. “Even prettier than your wanted posters.” 

“You saw those, huh?” keith asks, immediately pulling his hat down to cover his face, shielding himself from Shiro’s fond, gentle teasing. 

“Yeah. But I’d seen you in the flesh before, remember? I already knew you were the finest-looking bandit in the territory.”

Behind his dusty hat, Keith laughs. He peeks one eye out from the cover of its brim. “_You_— you’re a real flatterer, Shiro. Silver-tongued.”

“No. Just being true to life.” Shiro smiles, gentle.

Keith is quiet for a long time, his hat perched on one bent knee. His fingers skim along its fraying edge, deliberating. “What do you mean when you say that? That you’ve seen me before?” he asks, quieter than the distant singing of the cicadas. “I’d remember if I met a man like you, Shiro.”

Shiro blinks away the unexpected tearing along his waterline. “It’s not your fault if you don’t remember. Like I said, it’s— it might as well have been another life, Keith. But I’m glad to spend time with you now. It’s now that matters.”

There’s a hush as dusk falls around them, the sunset lilacs and pale blues giving way to star-studded nighttime shades. The firewood crackles and pops. The rush of nearby water soothes. Shiro barely hears the rustle of Keith’s movements over it— quiet and sneaky as the outlaw can be— until he’s close enough to feel the heat off his body, the brush of his thigh against Shiro’s.

Shiro’s satisfied with that much, thinking only that Keith’s willing to sit right beside him again, their shoulders bumping companionably as they stare past the low burning fire. But when he turns his head to Keith to comment on the horses, his words run dryer than the surrounding hills and his mouth falls open, slack. 

Keith is closer than he thought. And fixed on him. And beautiful, between the moonlight and firelight dancing over his skin. And Shiro is even more lost for words as Keith’s hand settles on his knee, fingers brushing along his inner thigh, before leaning up and in to catch Shiro’s mouth in a forceful first kiss.

He tastes like water and smoke. His lips are surprisingly soft under all the chapped skin, pillowy against Shiro’s own. And as Shiro slips his tongue against the seam of Keith’s mouth, there isn’t one iota of him that questions how true to life Keith is. The wet shine of his teeth, the tender softness of his inner cheeks, the slip of his tongue against Shiro’s: all of it feels real. All of feels _ right_. 

The dry grass crumples easily under him as he lies back, Keith’s lips chasing him as he goes. He’s born down sweetly but fiercely, Keith all too happy to pin him against the earth and kiss him hard, hungry, demanding. Slender hands spread across Shiro’s chest, feeling him through his black vest and the white button-down underneath it. A leg sweeps across his hips as Keith straddles him again, clumsy in his haste to get atop Shiro.

Shiro doesn’t mind it. His hands squeeze their way up Keith’s lean thighs, thumbs dipping in low to trace the inner seam of his sleek trousers before arcing high, tracing up the jut of his hipbone. The layers of fabric and waistcoat make Keith’s figure a little squarer, more broad; but the body underneath is slender, built of tight, compact muscle. Shiro’s hands settle on either side of Keith’s narrow waist, his fingertips almost brushing for how slight he is.

But still strong. So, _ so _ strong as he holds Shiro in check with just a single hand while smothering himself against him. Keith feels real in every way imaginable— the weight of his touch, the heat of his breath, the passion behind the needy kisses that miss Shiro’s mouth and land messily on his jaw, his cheek, his throat. He _ is _ real, no matter where he came from or how he came to be. 

Shiro fumbles blindly in the sinking firelight to unfasten every button Keith wears; defter fingers do the same for him, throwing his shirt open to reveal a long column of scar-marked skin before working on his trousers next. His long, elegant fingers draw Shiro free, a soft noise hanging in the back of Keith’s throat as he weighs Shiro in his hand.

The fingerless gloves rub coarsely against him as Keith begins to stroke him to hard, aching fullness. 

“Sorry, Shiro,” he apologizes after Shiro squirms under the touch. Keith bites each of his gloves at the wrist, peeling the worn leather off with his teeth. He catches Shiro’s hand after, making to remove his gloves, too.

“N-no. No. Leave it, please,” Shiro says, choked and frantic, worried what Keith might say if he sees metal fingers, all chrome and black.

“Of course,” Keith whispers, lifting Shiro’s gloved hand to his lips and leaving a feathery kiss on its knuckles.

Of the two of them, Keith’s shed more clothing. His shirt and vest have been shucked off, cast aside, baring a beautifully sculpted torso. His trousers are pushed down below his knees, caught on his boots. And as Shiro runs his leather-clad hands up Keith’s front, he imagines the feeling of smooth, supple skin, soft to the touch.

There’s a sweetness to how Keith leans down over him again, a bare hand curled against Shiro’s cheek as he kisses him deep and breathlessly, languidly slow. Shiro writhes as the head of his cock catches on Keith’s skin, dragging stickily over the curve of his rear and bumping against his thigh. And he writhes more when Keith moans softly, almost fainter than the wind whistling through the grasses and sparse trees around them. 

“You don’t have to be gentle with me,” Keith whispers in his ear, his nose buried in Shiro’s hairline and his teeth scraping along his skin. “But I… haven’t been with anyone in a long, long time.”

“Me either,” Shiro whispers back. Excitement builds under his skin in a way he hasn’t felt in what feels like a lifetime, since before… since before a lot of things happened. It’s kinetic, a lightning hot thrill roiling through him as Keith’s palms cup against his pecs, calloused thumbs brushing over his nipples.

The breath in Shiro’s lungs catches as the flushed tip of his cock brushes against the seam of Keith’s ass, over the delicate pucker of his hole. Nimble fingers guide him in at the just the right angle, Shiro’s hands curling tight into Keith’s hips as the first inch slips in. Keith flexes around him, impossibly snug, and Shiro is almost lost right then.

With a soft groan, Keith sinks down the rest of his length so swiftly and certainly that it tears a cry out of Shiro. No careful stretching, no gentle adjustment to his girth— just a smooth slide and the perfect press of tight walls all around him, the inside of Keith slick and comfortingly warm.

Shiro’s head drops back as Keith starts to roll his hips, slow and sinuous, working strangled sighs and whimpers out of him. But it can’t be more than a minute before Keith begins to rise and fall on Shiro’s cock in earnest, riding him hard and eager. And Shiro knows there’s only so long he can last through the perfect constriction around him, that rippling of muscle tugging him forcefully toward a climax that has him seeing stars behind his eyelids— and then milking him dry.

“Fuck. Sorry,” Shiro gasps as soon as his head clears, a fresh wave of well-pleased exhaustion turning his whole body pliant, relaxed.

Keith is already raised halfway off of him when Shiro grabs his hips and eases him back down, keeping the length of his softening cock lodged deep inside.

“Wait. Let me take care of you,” he says, his gloved hand wrapping around Keith’s pretty, slender cock, thumb swirling circles around its head.

“Y-you don’t have to,” Keith stutters out, even as his hips roll in a lazy circle, clearly enjoying the combination of warm, sticky fullness and the ardent movement of the hand clasped around him.

“I want to,” is all Shiro says. His lips part as he watches Keith’s expression, desperate to remember every detail— every little twitch in his upturned brows; the flushed darkness of his lips, his open mouth, his shallow, panting breaths; the way he clutches to Shiro’s wrist with one hand and touches himself with the other, fine fingers toying with his own chest. 

Keith shudders above him as he comes, his whole body strung taut like a bow. His come shoots in spurts that catch Shiro across the chin and paint across his chest, the trails of it glistening under the rising moonlight.

“Sorry,” Keith apologizes, gathering the mess along Shiro’s jaw up on the side of his thumb, wiping it away.

On an impulse, Shiro rolls his head to the side and catches Keith’s finger in his mouth before he pulls back, sucking it clean. It tastes real, too.

“You really are something else,” Keith says after, full of some kind of admiration as he brushes the wet pad of his thumb over Shiro’s bottom lip.

They’re too sleepy with satisfaction to think of keeping vigilant watch. Or to clean up before they sleep takes them And even as a distant whisper at the back of Shiro’s mind warns that they’re courting danger, being so lax this far along the fringes of the park, he can’t bring himself to object as Keith flops down against his side, half-dressed, his face buried in Shiro’s shoulder and his knee hooked around Shiro’s leg. 

Dawn brings sunlight, the singing of birds, and the warm, sweaty tangle of Keith around him. Keith, who’s suddenly shy by daylight, his whole body on fire with a blush as he stretches up and presses a chaste morning kiss to Shiro’s cheek. 

They bathe in the nearby river while the horses drink. With a deep breath, Shiro finally peels his shirt all the way off, exposing the sleek metal of his very modern prosthetic. The staff had assured him that its anachronistic appearance wouldn’t garner him any extra attention, wouldn’t interrupt the immersion of his stay, but…

Keith turns where he stands waist-deep in the river, his dark eyes alighting on glimmering chrome and black synthetics. But they keep moving, settling on Shiro’s face instead, entirely unfazed. Or unaware. Hosts like Keith can’t notice what doesn’t belong in their world. 

“You waiting for an invitation?” Keith asks as he works a rough bar of soap across his chest and down his front, under his arms. “Come here, Shiro.”

Shiro grins and strides the rest of the way into the water, relieved.

As they bathe, he takes account of the marks he left on Keith— the bruised impression of fingers along his slim hips, a little hickey along his throat— and the ones Keith left on him in turn. His back is sore where he was ridden into the ground, too, but it’s a good ache. A happy reminder. 

Shiro offers to clean Keith’s back, which turns into working the soapy lather through his hair, massaging gently over his scalp. It leaves Keith listing back against him, moaning almost as loud as the night before. 

They kiss while they lounge on the riverbank to dry, and Shiro can’t remember the last time he was so at ease in his scarred, discolored skin, so comfortable naked in his own company— much less someone else’s. He and Keith only break camp when the horses lift their noses and scent something approaching on the breeze, their whinnying worry contagious. 

They ride from safe haven to safe haven, stealing time where they can before some new threat approaches. A day-and-a-half in the life of Keith, ever on the run, only now Shiro’s there to stay by his side through it all.

But it’s doomed to end, either when it comes time for Shiro to board the train and return home or sooner, when Keith’s luck eventually runs thin. 

It happens as they’re racing through Marmora territory the next afternoon, fleeing a drunken band of Confederados who hold no love for Keith the Red— or the newcomer riding by his side, almost as good a shot as the renowned outlaw he keeps company with. 

Keith sees a camouflaged archer taking aim at Shiro and wastes no time in lining himself up to take the shot instead.

Shiro turns his head just in time to see Keith pierced through, an arrow bursting through his ribs as a well of crimson darkens his front. His empty pistol drops from his hand, which stretches out toward Shiro instead, fingers curling desperately in the air, the light in his dark eyes already fading. Shouts and hoofbeats tail them, and all Shiro can think to do is take Keith and run far, far, _ far _ from here. He veers in close, grabs Keith before he topples from his bay mare’s saddle, and pulls him onto his own horse without missing a galloping beat.

Shiro rides at full tilt until he hits a river, his poor horse lathered and heaving underneath him. He slips from the saddle with Keith in his arms, already dead. And this time hurts no less for having lived through it once before. It’s worse, even. Worse to know it was for _ his _ sake, Keith so quick to throw his own life away for someone who walks this world impervious.

He doesn’t bury Keith this time. 

Shiro draws the arrow from his chest inch by awful inch, sickened at the sight of the bright blood coating its wooden shaft. And once he’s empty of tears, he walks the riverbank and fills his upturned hat with wildflowers of carmine red, butter yellow, snowy white. Waist deep in pure waters, he spreads the blooms over Keith’s chest, covers them with his hat, and lets him go— to be carried away in the sleepy current, at least until the park’s staff come to recover valuable company property. 

And though Shiro is just as heartbroken as he rides back to Sweetwater to find Matt, he bears it a little better this time. He drinks at the Mariposa’s bar, ignores the come-ons of its fine ladies and gentlemen, sidesteps a drunken brawl between a few of the men playing at cards, and then wanders around town while Matt’s occupied with Clementine, feeling forlorn.

Sweetwater bustles with a life all its own, and Shiro is freshly reminded what a rich world this is— though poorer with the loss of Keith.

He burns time perusing the local shops, smiling at keepers who take in his bloodied, disheveled state with a wary eye, as if he might make trouble. But Shiro only wants to distract himself for the time being, until Matt is done saying goodbye and they can take their leave. He’s reminded of Keith everywhere he looks— the art supplies for sale in the general store, the tins of Keith’s favorite cookies, the red-dyed leathers hanging in shop windows.

It’s while wandering that he crosses paths with a woman who looks about Keith’s age, her skin a warm brown and her hair a brilliant, cloudy white. An uncommon color to see in anyone under the age of thirty, as Shiro knows firsthand. 

“Oh, thank you!” she says in a charming accent, grateful as Shiro stoops to pick up a tin of oil she’d dropped while readying her grey mare to ride. “I’m rarely so clumsy, but Luna here has been giving me an awful lot of lip as of late.”

Shiro’s think smile solidifies into something real as the horse does indeed turn to lip at the woman’s fluffy curls. “Wish I had an apple left for her to chomp on. Do you mind if I pet her?”

“By all means,” she says, stepping aside so that Shiro might run his hand down Luna’s neck and silvery mane. “Forgive me for not giving my name sooner. I’m Allura.”

“Shiro,” he introduces, patting Luna’s shoulder one last time before going in to shake Allura’s hand. He has no hat left to tip, so he touches two fingers to his brow instead, politely miming it.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Shiro. You must be new around these parts,” Allura says, her touch soft and her eyes kind. “If you’re in need of honest work, my father is always looking for some extra hands around the ranch.”

Shiro’s smile softens. In her pale blue dress and billowing curls, Allura is surely someone’s dream— not his, but someone’s. “I’ll be leaving town soon enough, but thanks for the offer.” 

“Next time you’re in town, then,” Allura says, open and inviting and charming, through and through. She clambers astride Luna and clicks her tongue as she sets off toward home, waving goodbye.

Shiro raises a black-gloved hand and returns the gesture. And as he watches her disappear into the shrub-covered hills, he finds himself worrying about her, too.

* * *

With the backing of both a considerable inheritance and vast personal wealth, Shiro decides it’s time to start investing in Sincline, the company behind Westworld and its neighboring parks. It’s a sound move financially, though not without its risks— Sincline’s founders, Zarkon and Honerva, have something of a reputation for being difficult. 

But Keith is worth the legal hassle and obligatory schmoozing with board members. He’s worth every minute of Shiro’s stored-up vacation time, which he burns through like kindling. He’s worth every last penny it costs to stay in the park and every snide, cold look from his relatives as he shuns their world in favor of Keith’s. 

And Shiro’s goal is always the same: to find Keith, to pull him free of his doomed loop, and to lay his love down at Keith’s feet.

It doesn’t always work. The world is a living, breathing thing, ever-changing. A contained multiverse, the hosts always adapting to tweaked storylines or new characters, the tiniest improvisation able to ripple across narratives.

There are times Shiro’s arrived too late, his stomach plummeting as he rides past the Garrison outpost and sees Keith hanging from a tree outside it, his front spotted with a dozen gunshot wounds, or just in time to see him ridden down in the desert, his last stand futile without someone else to whittle the soldiers down with him. There are even times he can’t find Keith at all, no matter how high or low he looks, from Sweetwater all the way out to Pariah and its wastes. 

But this time, it goes off without a hitch. 

He finds Keith being dragged back to town by a pair of bounty hunters, cuts him loose, and shoots the both of them for good measure. There’s a learning curve to it, but he’s a quicker study of Keith each time he visits, better and better at reaching out and convincing Keith to trust him enough to take his hand. They spend days riding together, wind-chafed and glistening under the beating sun, and it isn’t long before Keith comes at him with a yearning need that Shiro welcomes. It’s worth the wait, as all things to do with Keith are.

“Sometimes I hear a refrain in my head,” Keith says as they lie together in an abandoned barn afterward, lazing under the moonlight slatting in through the broken rafters, “in a voice I have no recollection of. A woman’s voice. I wonder if it might be my mother, singing me some lullaby. I wonder if maybe I haven’t forgotten her altogether after all.”

Shiro strokes slow through Keith’s hair, metal fingers lost in his mane. This is a new revelation, something Keith’s not yet thought to tell him in previous visits. “Maybe it is. What do you know of your mother?” 

Keith stretches his arm, fingers brushing the dark sheath sitting atop his piled clothing. “I know she was a warrior of the Marmora tribe. I know my pa saved her once, and they fell in love. She chose him over her people, for a time, and my father deserted the army to be with her. A hanging offense.”

Shiro swallows. The distant, aged hurt in Keith’s voice lingers with him, and underneath its hold he wonders if Keith’s parents exist, somewhere out in the vastness of the park, or if they only exist in his backstory. In lines of code. In notes of sadness in Keith’s rasping voice, a burden for him to carry through every life he lives.

“She stayed long enough to give birth to me. And then she left,” he murmurs, rolling into Shiro’s side and burying his face deep in the crook of his thickly muscled arm. He constrict around Shiro with a strength born of desperation, as if they can cling together tight enough to never be parted. After a few minutes, his lips move against Shiro’s bare skin. “Don’t ever go, Shiro. Please don’t leave me, too.” 

It’s enough for warm, silent tears to spill down the sides of his cheeks as he folds around Keith and nuzzles a kiss into the crown of his messy hair. Shiro’s already extended his stay twice, reluctant to leave Keith when they’ve reached such a comfortable place with each other, but tomorrow’s afternoon train back to the hotel is the absolute last chance he has to make a red-eye flight to Taipei for a meeting that’s been on the books for six months. A meeting he can’t miss, if he hopes to continue visiting Keith to the tune of a million dollars a year. 

“I won’t,” Shiro whispers, a dreadful, sinking weight forming in his gut.

The only sorrow that approaches the sight of Keith dying is that of leaving him behind. Holding his slight frame as he shakes and begs to come with, angrily questioning why they can’t ride away together instead. Making promises to return that Keith won’t live to see. Promises he won’t remember, anyway. And then sitting slumped in his seat on the train, bleary-eyed as he looks out the window and sees Keith and his mare on a distant hilltop, lingering outside of town just to watch him go, and then turning her aside to retreat into the wilds once more. Alone.

But they don’t make it that far this time, avoiding the heartbreak of parting while they both still live.

A patrol of Confederados stinking of whiskey and death finds them before they’re even saddled up the next morning, shooting their horses before they can think of fleeing, and Shiro knows this is where it’ll end. Keith rarely ever makes it through confrontations like this, his determination to protect Shiro overriding even his self-preservation; and there’s only so long Shiro can shield him, taking pelting hits from rifles and pistols alike, before a bullet or two slips through.

Once the last of the Confederado patrol lays dead, throat caved inward under the crush of Shiro’s fury-fed grip, he retrieves Keith and carries him somewhere safe, somewhere quiet. Somewhere peaceful— a hilltop crowned with blue cornflowers, his black hat laying atop the fresh grave.

* * *

“There’s a spark in him that’s different,” Shiro insists to Matt late one night in the Holt estate, after the dinner party has ended and Sam and Colleen have retreated to bed. On Matt’s nearby bed, almost completely hidden behind the enormous screen of her laptop, Pidge sighs. “_Special_. He— the things he asks go beyond planned dialogue and spontaneous sentence construction. The way he looks at me is different, and I _swear_ he has feelings of his own—”

“The hosts are made to make you think that, Shiro,” Pidge reminds him, no doubt weary of listening to Shiro gush about Keith for, possibly, the thousandth time. “And they’re very well-programmed. While I think it would be _ fascinating _ if they possessed some self-awareness, it’s… it’s highly unlikely Sincline would ever let it get that far.”

“It doesn’t make your feelings for him any less real,” Matt chips in, offering a slightly sad smile. The wallpaper on his tablet screen sitting in his lap is a promo picture of Clementine in all her revealing, ruffled skirts and curled hair— the old Clem, before the model Matt had grown so attached to was abruptly replaced with a younger, fresher face.

“Yeah, I’m not saying that,” Pidge says, straightening her glasses. “Keith is special because you love him and you empathize with his plight. That’s understandable. Admirable, even, Shiro. God knows those poor bots deserve a few rounds with people who don’t just want to torture them.”

“They can’t remember it, at least,” Shiro muses, his voice a hollow whisper. He pinches at his bottom lip with synthetic fingers, torn between being grateful that Keith isn’t burdened with the memories of a thousand deaths and indignities and mournful that he has no recollection of Shiro’s love for him, either.

“It’s the least Sincline can do, really,” Pidge shrugs. “If the hosts had any idea what the guests do to them on a regular basis, I doubt they’d be nearly as welcoming of ‘newcomers.’”

"True enough." Even as one of Westworld’s less gleefully violent guests, Shiro’s dirtied his hands plenty of times for Keith, massacring whole bands of outlaws and lawmen alike if it meant keeping the man he loves safe. If the hosts were able to hold a grudge, he’d surely have as many enemies as Keith does. 

Shiro spends long flights and boring meetings thinking of Keith’s smile, the squint of his eyes under the midday sun, the low, gravelly quality of his voice. He skims through the journal he keeps after each stay, reliving the slightly faded memories of their adventures together, their milestone moments, the anniversaries that only he can celebrate. And he keeps going back, again and again, year after year. Keith never notices the slow fade of his hair, more white with every passing season. He doesn’t notice the prosthetic upgrades, either, or the subtle shift in Shiro’s taste in clothing— more greys and pops of white than all black, now, though he always chooses the same hat.

He sneaks in small gifts, too, like miniature prints of seventeenth-century art, or new gloves, or vintage rings that inevitably disappear each time Keith dies, removed as he’s processed for return to service. It’s the joy in seeing his reaction that matters, though. Keith’s not used to getting anything at all, much less fine jewelry, and Shiro’s heart flutters to see a golden band fitted on his finger or worn proudly around his neck on a chain. 

They ford rivers together and bask in sunsets that paint the canyons and mountainsides red, gold, orange. They steal a few nights’ comfort in the handful of sleepy villages where Keith is hailed as more a hero than an outlaw, though one risky to shelter. And once— only once, Shiro still unsure what he’d done differently to trigger it— Keith brings him home to the only surviving building on what was once his father’s property. It’s a simple shack, nothing more, but Shiro watches Keith run his hand along the dusty wooden walls and knows this one room holds more meaning to him than all the rest of Westworld.

Shiro blows off an invitation to holiday in the Virgin Islands (“With someone _ real_,” his last surviving aunt comments, snippy, “but you’d rather run around and play pretend than put an ounce of effort into starting a family.”) to spend those precious days with Keith instead.

“I think,” Keith says as they stroll through the shrubland, the dust on the breeze sticking to the fresh blood splattered over their clothes, “now that I’ve gotten revenge on my late father’s behalf, I’d… I’d like to look for my mother.” 

“Your mother?” Shiro asks, his eyes softening at the uncertainty in Keith’s posture. “The Marmora warrior?”

“I told you about her in a past life, did I?” Keith asks, smiling. He’d leaned into all of Shiro’s wild claims about having known him before easy this time around, and in fact seemed to take some comfort in it.

“Once, yes,” Shiro says, his throat tightening at the memory. He wants to steer his mount closer and take Keith’s hand, but they’re not quite there yet. Not in this little lifetime, where they’re still navigating the border between close friendship and physical intimacy. So instead he lays his hand on Keith’s shoulder and gives him a gentle squeeze, encouraging. “We can look for her, Keith.”

Not that Shiro knows_ how_. The Marmora nation are reclusive, confined to the fringes of the park, and openly hostile to any interloper through their lands. Going looking for Keith’s mother— a host who may not even exist outside of the scripted backstory he’s been given— might well be the equivalent of chasing a phantom into a hornet’s nest.

But Keith… if it’s what Keith wants, then it’s worth trying.

They ride further from Sweetwater and its surrounding homesteads, and after five years of visiting the park, Shiro has a decent grasp of the land. As they cross a vast, grassy plain that borders the desert, Keith asks if he sings. 

Only in the shower or in the privacy of a karaoke room, but he can always make an exception for Keith. “Why? Is there something you want to hear?”

“Something about your voice makes me think you’d be a fine singer is all,” Keith shrugs. His expression takes on that hint of teasing Shiro’s grown so used to, a sly little uptick to the corner of his pretty mouth. “Unless you’re too shy, that is.” 

Shiro laughs, licks his lips, and racks his mind for a song with lyrics he thinks Keith would appreciate. Something appropriately western, though his familiarity with country music is sorely lacking. 

“Alright, alright,” he says, struggling to contain his nervous grin. He clears his throat, takes a deep breath, and starts singing low and soft to the slow plod of the horse’s hooves. “In the hushing dusk under a swollen silver moon, I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom. And strange hunger halted me, the looming shadows danced. I fell down to the thorny brush and felt a trembling hand.”

Keith’s not smiling anymore. Not even a little. He stares at Shiro with a mouth fallen slightly open, his dry lips parted, and violet-tinged irises shaded dark under the cast of thick lashes. 

“When the last light warms the rocks and the rattlesnakes unfold, mountain cats will come to drag away your bones,” Shiro continues, warmth rising under his skin at the way Keith’s eyes stay fixed on him, at the little flex down his slender throat as he swallows dry. Sharply self-conscious, his voice wavers as he sings out the last lines. “Then rise with me forever, across the silent sands. And the stars will be your eyes, and the wind will be my hands.”

There are a few beats of silence after it ends, the distant sounds of cawing birds and baying cattle suddenly louder and clearer. As is the huff of Shiro’s quickened breath and the hammer of his pulse in his ears. And the rustle of his clothing. And the sound of Keith unscrewing his canteen to take a deep swig.

“That’s real beautiful, Shiro,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. A little water still clings to his lips after anyway, noticeable under the bright sun.

“I didn’t write it,” Shiro confesses, lest Keith think he’s more talented with words than he is. “But I like the tune. And it seemed… fitting.” 

Keith grunts in agreement. “I was right. You do have a fine singing voice.”

Shiro ducks his head. “Thanks. I don’t— I’m not usually one to sing in front of other people.”

“Don’t see why not when you sound like _ that_,” Keith mumbles, turning aside as he takes another swig from his canteen. 

Shiro indulges him with a few more songs as they ride. Or parts of them, at least, that he imagines Keith will enjoy. And eventually he coaxes Keith into singing something, too— a brief song in soft, lilting Spanish. Something his father used to sing softly while he cooked, Keith explains after.

“I don’t rightly know what to make of you, Shiro,” Keith confesses over the fire that night, his legs stretched out long beside Shiro’s. He runs a hand through his hair and looks sidelong at Shiro, wonder and disbelief warring in his expression. “How’re you real?” 

It takes Shiro aback. “How am I real?”

“A man like you,” Keith murmurs, his gaze gliding down the length of Shiro’s body. “Willing to devote so much time to a lowlife outlaw like me. I can’t fathom it, Shiro,” he sighs, arms folded in his lap as he pointedly stares up and into the night sky. “You could keep anyone’s company, if you so desired. Why mine?”

It’s not the first time Keith’s asked him this, though he’s chosen different words at different points in time. Slow as the crumbling of ash in the fire, Shiro reaches over and lays his gloved hand atop Keith’s. “Because I don’t want anyone else’s company. I’m happiest when I’m with you, Keith. You make me feel… free.”

“I feel free with you too, Shiro,” Keith says, turning his hand so that his palm presses against Shiro’s and winding their fingers together. “Like I’m… like I’ve been given a second chance. Like I can leave all the ugliness of my life behind and make a new one with you. A better one than I had been dealt before.”

Shiro’s heart twists at the way Keith’s voice breaks on his words and the faint tremble of his lower lip. He cups his other hand against Keith’s cheek, thumb brushing back and forth over tender, blushing skin. 

“You have such a good heart, Keith, and it’s a crime so few people recognize it. You’re talented and handsome and so, _ so _ brave. So sweet. And too selfless, Keith,” he adds, smiling through the first warm tear to trail down to his jaw. “You’re not like anyone else in this world. Or anywhere beyond it, even. And you deserve better.”

“_Shiro._” Keith turns and falls against him, his face pressed into the crook of Shiro’s shoulder and his arms thrown tight around his breadth. His tears dampen the rumpled fabric of Shiro’s collar; his muffled cries barely reach Shiro’s ears.

“Keith. It’s alright, Keith. Let it out. I’m here for you. And only for you,” he quietly comforts, cradling him close, til Keith is halfway in his lap and his stifled weeping slows to a calm, contemplative silence. 

“In all the time you’ve known me, Shiro, have I ever mentioned to you a… a voice?” Keith asks, his own voice shrinking small. Hesitant. “A voice that I hear sometimes in the dead of night?”

It throws Shiro for a moment, but it’s easy to see trace Keaith’s little leap to this rare topic after how they’d spent the afternoon. “Yeah. The one you think might be your mother singing to you.”

“No. I— not that,” Keith says, shaking his head. “Another. A— a man’s voice, but not my father’s. One I’ve never heard before. It started as a whisper, I think, but more and more I hear him speak to me.” 

Shiro has no idea what to say to that or how to soothe the troubled furrow in Keith’s brow, the worried look in his eye. “And what does he say to you?”

Keith wipes away the tear-trails down his cheeks and stares ahead. “_ Remember. _ He tells me to remember, but I… I don’t know what I’m meant to recall. My mother? I was so young when she left, I don’t…” He turns back to Shiro, eyes glimmering. In a trembling whisper, he asks, “Shiro, am I losing my mind?”

“No. No, Keith,” he comforts, smoothing his hand up and down along Keith’s spine. There’s a flicker of immediate tension, Keith’s muscles bunching tight under his touch, before it vanishes with a sigh; Keith sags against him like he’s been sapped of strength, trusting Shiro to support him instead. “You’re fine, baby. I promise.”

But Shiro is as much in the dark as Keith is. Is it normal for hosts to hear voices? Is it his programming? An error? The first sign of some new underpinning to his backstory? Shiro thought he’d made it clear Keith wasn’t to be touched again, inside or out; it’s bad enough that Design went ahead and slapped that painful new scar across his cheek for _ improved market-testing_.

The night wears on and they both grow wearier. Shiro rolls out his bedroll, smiling as Keith wordlessly lays out side right beside it, so close they’ll be able to hold each other until morning. While Keith tugs off his boots, Shiro unbuttons his waistcoat and shirt, glad to be free of their snug confines for a while. He lays them to the side in a neatly folded pile, his leather gloves sitting on top.

He’s still getting comfortable on the thin cushion of his roll when Keith stretches out beside him and wriggles closer— and then freezes, the waning firelight catching in his shocked-wide eyes. 

“Your— your arm,” Keith gasps, a shaky breath following. He reaches out and then draws up short, as if uncertain of touching it. “Shiro, what… what is this? What happened to you?” 

“I…” A hundred thoughts race through Shiro’s mind, chief among them a panicked note of _ you aren’t supposed to be able to see it, you’ve _ ** _never_ ** _ been able to see it. _ He swallows stickily, and when he speaks again it’s in a strangled, anxious whisper. “Shrapnel.”

He’d been following in his mother’s footsteps when he enlisted, eager to make a name for himself as a pilot— like she did, a pioneer in experimental craft— before manned flights became a thing of the past. In monkey’s paw sort of way, he had succeeded; his crash is the stuff of Air Force Academy textbooks, the last major incident before the military committed fully to AI and remote piloting.

“But I-I-I’ve never seen— why is it— how can you…” Keith’s mouth opens and shuts, going eerily silent as he labors to improvise a response to something he never should’ve noticed at all.

Worry clenches deep in Shiro’s gut. “It’s a prosthetic. A replacement. Does it bother you?”

That snaps Keith out of whatever jarring loop his programming is caught in. “No. No, Shiro. I don’t dislike any piece or part of you. I just… I never knew you had one. I didn’t even know things like this existed. I didn’t know they could be beautiful.” 

Shiro smiles slow, a blush creeping up his neck and over his cheeks as Keith presses his hand to Shiro’s and matches his slender fingers up against longer, thicker ones formed of metal and circuitry and flexible, high-grade polycarbonate. It’s fascinating to watch Keith so captivated by the part of Shiro that’s most like him, in the most technical sense— an artificial construct perfected to perform just as well as its inspiration, if not better. 

But even the marvel of Keith seeing him in full for the first time pales before the swooping, spine-tingling moment that Keith leans in close to kiss his plated palm, his metallic wrist, the joints of precisely articulated fingers.

“As beautiful as the rest of you,” Keith says, his warm affection riddled with glints of something purer, brighter, burning with intent. He leans in close, his breath ghosting over Shiro’s lips and the lupine purple of his eyes all that Shiro can see. 

Keith kisses him and Shiro melts, heart and all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the song Shiro sings is "Far From Any Road" by The Handsome Family!  
The next chapter will have some Keith POV and introduce Lance, Hunk, and Lotor :))))
> 
> I'm on twitter (and everywhere else) as [neyasochi](https://twitter.com/neyasochi)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith lives, dies, and searches for Shiro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a Keith chapter!

Keith wakes with his eyes still closed, the distant murmur of voices growing sharper as he pushes his way through a deep and dreamless slumber. A heavy darkness hangs around him, its grip boglike. But he’s lucid— or so he thinks, awareness slowly filling him like gunsmoke trapped in a bottle. A jumble of images slips through his mind, each one crisp and clear down to every blade of grass and strand of snow-white hair. And the moment Keith looks into Shiro’s silver-grey eyes, he’s there with him again.

Lying in a meadow lush with larkspurs and blazingstars and evening primrose, long grasses gone to seed tickling his nose. Shiro taking a bite from an apple and then passing it to him, its flesh sweet and crisp. The horses snuffling behind them, their tails swishing to flick away the buzzing flies. Shiro plucking a yellow-petaled blazingstar and combing through waves of dark hair to tuck it behind Keith’s ear, like he’s some belle meant to be romanced sweetly.

It’s nice, on occasion— being treated gentle.

Keith is gentle with Shiro in turn as he kisses him, as he rolls him over and crushes him against the dry grasses and wildflowers, as he works his fingers into the tight heat of his strong body and ruts against the firm swell of his thigh. 

And when Shiro begs for it harder, Keith happily obliges.

There’s no prettier sight than having Shiro spread under him, his glistening skin framed by natural splendor. Pretty enough to be art sitting in some French salon, certainly. Pretty enough for Keith to wonder why on earth Shiro is content lying with him, a wanted outlaw with a bounty on his head, when he could surely charm any man or woman he wanted on a passing whim.

“Keith,” Shiro begs in the narrow spaces between heavy, lung-spasming breaths. “Please, Keith, fuck me. _ Hard_. Harder! Fuck, _ yes _, like that!”

Even the coarsest things come so soft on Shiro’s silky-fine lips. It’s something about him— something Keith still can’t quite suss out, a gentleness that lurks somewhere under all that scarred muscle. An innocence, almost, no matter how many times Shiro’s drawn first blood on his account or bathed himself in the blood of Keith’s enemies to protect him.

“I’ll plow you right into the ground, Shiro,” Keith breathes hotly into the shell of his ear, the dry grasses and golden flowers brushing along his nose and sweat-beaded brow. 

He grins as Shiro’s wheezing laugh peals high into a moan. Keith is a man of his word, however few trust him on it.

Nails rake sharp along his back as Shiro’s body writhes under him like a rattler poising to strike, all sinuousness and coiled muscle. The slick clench around Keith’s cock grows perfectly, impossibly tight, Shiro stuttering into a quiet spell as he holds his breath through the blistering climax wracking through every inch of him.

And Keith follows close on his heels, as ever, bucking down hard into Shiro even as he begins to go pliant. It’s a quick chase, his own pleasure found while buried inside Shiro to the hilt. His fingers curl sharp into the earth as his seed sinks deeper into Shiro with every aching throb, aglow in the satisfaction of having left a little of himself within the man he loves.

There’s a sharp sigh under him, the thud of a steely arm falling aside amid the trampled grasses and crushed blooms. Shiro’s other hand settles at the small of Keith’s back, working slow circles into the sweat-pooled dimples along either side of his spine. “Don’t pull out yet.”

Keith blinks slow, smiling like a fool through his post-coital haze. “Yessir.”

At the barest bit of teasing, Shiro groans and covers his face with both broad hands, hiding as much embarrassedly reddened skin as he can. Against his palms, he mutters, “God, that was good.”

“God didn’t have a damn thing to do with it,” Keith mumbles out, his smug grin pressed into the comfortable swell of Shiro’s blush-dusted chest. Lazy, he swipes his tongue over the dark, pretty nipple that lays within reach. “Give credit where it’s due, Shiro.”

“You’re insufferable,” Shiro snorts, grabbing his nearby hat and pushing it down onto Keith’s head. “And the most amazing man I’ve ever bedded. There. Happy?”

Keith nods under the wide brim of Shiro’s handsome hat, set off-kilter upon his disheveled hair, happy to relax where he lay sprawled atop Shiro’s larger form. And as he noses into the warm, musky scent on Shiro’s skin, it isn’t long before Keith feels himself stiffen again inside Shiro.

The slightest roll of his hips draws haggard gasps and the thinnest, breathiest moans Keith’s ever heard, every inch of the powerfully, beautifully sculpted man underneath him trembling like a stallion worked past the point of exhaustion.

But it’s a _ good _ exhaustion, both longed-for and welcomed. It’s an ache he well knows Shiro enjoys— fucked good and well through a few peaks and valleys before they finally concede to slumber, beyond well-sated. It’s a luxury that Keith’s glad to indulge in, claiming Shiro time and again; stripping him down in the sweetest of ways, til he’s incoherent with desire.

After, they nap for an hour or two, drowsing under the late morning sun. And then it’s time to head down to the river to wash up, their arms slung around each other and their lips never parted for long. 

There’s a nest of hornets in Keith’s stomach as they finally dress, saddle up, and ride toward Marmora territory— or so it feels. It’s a buzzing apprehension, a dread that crawls and gnaws deeper with every mile they ride. The hunt for his mother is almost like chasing a ghost, a woman he has only the faintest impressions of, and Keith fears he’s dragging Shiro along for a hopeless endeavor that might well get him killed.

His stare slips sideways, seeking Shiro where he rides beside him. Keith would never forgive himself if any kind of harm came to this man he loves well beyond any other, always first and foremost in his heart— least of all if it happened on his account.

It’s bad luck that has them cross paths with a new posse out in the great, wild plains. It consists of four women not unlike Keith himself, forever in between belonging to either tribe or township. Shiro tries to talk peace to them, as he so often does; Keith’s hand stays on his hip, fingers itching to draw his gun and lay all four of them out first.

“We have our orders,” is all that the woman wearing the horns of some slain antelope says. Turns out she’s a frightfully skilled shot, too.

Agony strikes Keith twofold— half the violent pain of the bullet bored into his chest and the rest all for Shiro, who cries out in horror at the sight. Through the aching burn that races through his veins, he manages to kill one of the riders and wound another. With a bellow, the survivors grab their dead and turn tail in a galloping retreat, apparently satisfied with dealing Keith a mortal blow.

It grows harder to keep himself upright in the saddle. Harder to see, even. Warmth spills out of him in wet little gushes, spurred by the frantic beating of his heart. A dizzy spell has him slumping like a ragdoll, his boots slipping from the stirrups, but Shiro is there to catch him and gently bear him down to the earth. 

Of course.

Even as Shiro holds him close and murmurs every sort of comfort he can (_I love you_’s and apologies and strings of promises that they’ll find each other again soon) Keith is swiftly strangled by the dread of leaving him behind. This world is too cruel for a man like Shiro to last through alone, and Keith is meant to be the one who keeps him safe as they travel its vast and unknown reaches. He _ knows _ it. _ Feels _ it, as sure as he feels the metal stroking over his tear-stained cheeks and the lips pressed to his brow, moving with some plea or prayer. 

And then, he sleeps.

Keith’s finger twitches as he recalls his pistol and its comforting weight. It had belonged to his pa, once upon a time. He’d maintained it carefully until Keith was of an age to learn how to defend himself and those he loved. Then his pa taught him how to aim true and swift, and Keith had taken to gunplay like a starling takes to the air. He’d been five, maybe, the first time he fired a pistol.

Idly, Keith finds himself counting backward as the murmurs around him grow louder, distinct voices arising out of the dark depths where Keith drifts alone. Five, four, three, two, one— and the words in the darkness take shape around him, nonsensical as they are.

“... one of the hosts that got updated recently? They’ve been pulling a bunch for aberrant behavior and I don’t see why we need to fix one that they’re going to shelve anyway.”

“Can’t shelve this one, dude. Someone with a high-level access code basically wrote it in stone under this guy’s character profile— light modifications _ only _. If you ever checked the host permissions tab like you’re supposed to, you’d have seen that.” 

“I’m _ so _ sorry, Hunk. Didn’t realize this mullet-man was some rich putz’s favorite toy.” 

A dubious hum. Then a dropped whisper. “More like a board member. They don’t make exceptions for every billionaire who waltzes into the park. And I’ve never seen a specific host flagged for preservation like this. It’s, uh, kinda curious. You know? Like, what makes this one so special?”

“Dunno,” the other voice answers back, his pitch grating. “I mean, there’s better looking hosts out there for sure. Have you seen the rancher’s daughter?”

Keith’s awareness builds while the voices chatter on, only concerned with each other. He’s cold. _ Naked. _ Lying on what feels like a metal table. His sense of pain returns to him, too, blooming sharp between his ribs like there’s a knife being twisted into his flesh. 

And when Keith finally opens his eyes, it’s to a brilliant, blinding light like something out of a sermon on the pearly gates. And screams. Shrill ones.

“W-What the fuck! What the _ fuck_, Hunk!” A shrieking beanpole of a man looms above him, a bloody scalpel clutched in his trembling, white-gloved hand as he yells at the darker-skinned man on the opposite side of the table. “You were supposed to put it in sleep mode!” 

The red coating the tools and the table is _ his _ blood, Keith realizes, disoriented as he sits up and takes stock of his surroundings. Bright. Strange. Everywhere is white-walled and glassy, like windows with unheard-of clarity stretched to impossible size. The two men on either side of him are in all white, too. And just within reach sits a tray of sharp, silvery surgeon’s tools with bloodied edges. 

“I did! I did, look!” the big man shouts back, waving a dark rectangle and tapping frantically against its glossy surface.

Keith ignores them and snatches one of the scalpels in a closed fist, fiercely missing his mother’s dagger. He points it at the beanpole, who squeals and drops his own scalpel in his haste to throw up his arms and surrender. 

“Hunk, stop it! Right now. Before security comes over here and we get reprimanded!”

“Freeze all motor functions,” the big man says, an air of almost-certainty to the command. It vanishes as Keith cocks his head and levers himself up into a sitting position, wincing at the sharp tug in his chest. “I said, freeze all motor functions. Hey, freeze all motor functions!”

Keith glares back, the scalpel still thrust out toward the two of them. The fingers of his free hand drift featherflight over his aching ribs, trembling as they brush over the jagged flesh surrounding a hole. A bullet-sized one, but dry of fresh blood. Unnaturally so. 

Keith’s dry tongue passes over drier lips, at a loss. The last thing he remembers is riding across that posse of mysterious women, one of whom had no doubt put a bullet in him as he’d tried to protect— 

_ Shiro. _

“Where’s Shiro?!” he snarls, ignoring the tearing, lancing pain down his front as he swings his legs over the side of the rickety metal table and turns on the pair of bizarrely dressed men in earnest. 

They scream and cling to each other as Keith plants his bare feet on the cold floor, legs wobbling to a stand. He advances slow, backing them into a glass wall; with nowhere else to go, they sink to the floor, arms wrapped around each other, still begging him to freeze. 

But Keith is in no mood for nonsense when for all he knows Shiro is still out there, forced to navigate the world’s harsh winds and wilds alone, like Keith had to for so long. 

“If you don’t know where I can find Shiro, then you’re of no use to me,” he snaps, lunging in and sliding the slim blade under the stringy man’s throat, his other hand fisted taut in the glossy white fabric.

“You c-can’t hurt us,” the man says back, voice wavering even as he lifts his chin and meets Keith’s gaze with watery eyes. “Y-Your programming won’t allow it.”

For a moment, the words seem to slip right past Keith, too strange to comprehend. Gibberish. The babbling of a cowardly fool staring down death. But he fights it, holding on to the alien phrase— mouthing it, turning it over, trying to understand. _ My programming? _

“Care to test that?” is what he says instead, drawing the blade up so that it kisses against the underside of the beanpole’s jaw, pressed tight enough to draw the thinnest line of welling blood.

“Wait! Wait, please,” the big man says, a hand held up in a pleading gesture. “Keith— it’s Keith, isn’t it?”

Keith holds, eyeing him warily and waiting for more. “Yeah.”

“I’m Hunk,” he says, pressing a large, gloved hand to his chest and inadvertently transfering a few smears of fresh blood. _ Keith’s _ blood. “And the guy you’re trying to kill is Lance. Look, can we— let’s take a step back and talk this over peacefully. We can’t help you find Shiro if we’re dead.”

Keith gives it lengthy consideration before forcing out a heavy sigh through his nose and letting Lance go. “Fine,” he huffs, drawing back and resting in a low crouch. “You can start by telling me where the _ fuck _ I am.”

The two of them share an uncertain look.

It’s Hunk who speaks, though. “You’re in Westworld.”

_ Westworld. _ More nonsense. Keith tries to hide how utterly lost and confused he is, leaning on a mask of anger to keep these strange strangers in line.

“Hunk, why are you indulging this thing when we need to get security in here to decommission it stat—” 

“Lance,” Hunk hisses through gritted teeth. “Cool it.”

Keith ignores their bickering and tries to follow a thread that’ll help him understand where he is and how he got here. “Westworld? Where is that? What’s all this? Why were you—” Keith struggles here, uncertain how to even put it into words. “You were operating on me. Removing a— a—”

A bullet. Keith’s hand presses over his ribs again, thinking of the shot he’d been dealt. And after, he’d died, hadn’t he? In Shiro’s arms? 

“I don’t know how to tell you this,” Hunk says, his deeply brown eyes brimming full of something like sympathy, “but you’re… you’re not human.”

Reflexively, Keith bristles. “I’m as much a man as any other—”

“No. No, you aren’t. You’re a host. You were made in a lab. Right here in Westworld, actually,” Lance interrupts, ignoring Hunk’s hushed pleas to stop. “Seven floors up, I think. They built you from scratch, assigned you a _ godawful _ personality matrix, and filled your head with some sad story about your childhood to justify why you run around terrorizing the other hosts.”

On the inside, Keith’s as stricken as he is confused. Outwardly, he snarls and snaps, “What kind of lies—” 

“How else do you explain all of _ this?” _

And as Lance throws out his arm in a broad gesture, Keith for the first time turns his attention outside the glass walls and blinding overhead lights.

He stands slowly and observes that this room is just one of many, though most of the others currently sit dim and empty. Naked bodies lie corpse-like upon metal tables, just as Keith had awoken. Through innumerable glass walls, he sees surgeons in gleaming white suits with their hands buried inside people— _ hosts_, like himself— as they take them apart and stitch them back together.

“No. No, I am,” Keith says, shaking his head at the sight that makes no sense to him. Familiar words tumble out of his mouth while his mind races to understand what’s unfolding around him. “There have always been people who considered me lesser than by virtue of my birth, but these are lies. I’m as much a man as any other. I’ve shed blood and sweat and tears, same as anyone. I’ve mourned. I’ve loved.”

“Synthetic blood. Saline tears.” Lance snatches the rectangular pad from Hunk’s hand as he rises to his feet and taps furiously on its glass surface. “Here, look. Everything that makes you _ you _ up here,” he says, pointing at his own skull, “comes from this tablet.”

“Bullshit,” Keith snarls, his upper lip fiercely curled. But when Lance turns the tablet toward him and pushes it into his hands, Keith takes hold.

It’s lighter than he thought it’d be. Strangely smooth and sleek, too. And in its window-like glass, Keith sees himself in a lifelike portrait he can’t remember ever sitting for. He smoothes his thumb across the vividly colored image of his own stiff-jawed face, surprised when the image slides away to reveal another— him without the scar that currently arcs up his cheek, his hair a smidge shorter, his eyes vacant.

“This can’t be me,” Keith mumbles, though the picture of his own likeness disturbs him in ways he can’t put words to.

“It’s you. See?” Hunk drags a finger across the screen, unveiling cascading branches of a conversation. _ Their _ conversation, every word Keith’s spoken up until now written out right in front of him. “Your speech is a combination of scripted dialogue and improvisation. This chart tracks whether you’re referencing a script or improvising a response based on past interactions.” 

“No, that’s not possible— it can’t—”

But as soon as Keith even thinks of what to say next, the little tablet in his hands mirrors his thoughts. His throat sticks. Every attempt to speak comes out a stammering gurgle, as if the path between his head and his mouth has been brutally severed. Keith’s muscles seize; his thoughts jam and jumble further. The color of the text on the screen quickly changes from yellow to red, CONFLICT and FAILED TO IMPROVISE popping up in lieu of actual dialogue.

He is dimly aware of Hunk slipping the tablet from his hands, though he can do nothing about it. Distantly, Lance talks of resetting him and rolling him back, of how Behavior will want to know so they can study him. But it all feels far away from Keith’s current predicament, a prisoner in a body he suddenly has little to no control over. 

Everything goes dark again. Formless. Weightless. Keith’s breathing settles back into rhythm. When he blinks awake, it’s to Hunk’s concerned face looming close, backlit by the overhead lights that burn brighter than the sun.

“Oh! Uh, hey. You’re back up. So, I did a quick reboot just to get you out of that really fucked up logical loop. Do you still feel homicidal, or has that passed?” 

Keith groans and pushes himself up from the exam table. They took the scalpel from him and the tray with the surgical tools sits far across the room, purposefully out of reach. Still, Keith is grateful that it’s just the three of them, no backup called to hold him down and carry him deeper into this strange hell. 

“It’s passed,” he mumbles. 

For now, anyway, Keith has greater and more pressing concerns. He requests to look at the tablet again, this time careful of getting lost in the confusion of seeing his own responses charted out before him in real-time. Instead, he studies the words and strange shapes arrayed around his picture, dragging a nail under each line of text as he tries to make sense of it.

“At-ttribute mat— matrix,” he puzzles out, lost for what it means. 

“That’s your core personality,” Hunk helpfully tells him, cautiously edging in closer. He seems more than happy to guide Keith through the intricacies of his own workings, hands on his knees as he stoops low to better read the tablet. “There are a hundred and twenty total attributes in your matrix, but behavioral programmers are the only ones who can access most of them. We can do small adjustments here or there, though.”

Keith reads down the spiderweb-shaped chart of traits, first drawn to those traits that spike the highest: candor, bellicosity, coordination, reserve, intuition, loyalty, courage, artistry. He frowns as he considers the attributes where he falls lower on the scale. Deceptiveness. Patience. Assurance. Congeniality. Sensuality. _ Charm. _

“What’s ‘bulk apperception?’” Keith questions, eyebrows pinched together. His _ bulk apperception _ currently sits at twelve out of twenty.

“Your ability to expand your own knowledge. How smart you are, basically,” Hunk explains, all dark eyes alight with interest; Keith can’t quite figure whether it comes from sheer curiosity over an anomaly like himself or simply an enthusiastic passion for teaching. “They only let hosts go up to fourteen on that one. You’re a little higher than most because they wanted you to be clever enough to pose a challenge.”

Curious, Keith drags a finger along the line that demarcates his strength, bumping it up from twelve to a full twenty. A tingle ripples through his body half a heartbeat later, his spine drawing straighter as every tendon and cord of muscle suddenly adjusts to the change. As Keith straightens his spine, it’s with the confidence that he could probably snap bone with his bare hands and force steel to bend. 

“Wait, what are you doing? You can’t do that,” Lance complains as Keith begins methodically upping his stats across the matrix. “Hunk, can he just do that?”

“Uh, he _ just did,”_ Hunk answers, looking just as uncertain.

A number of traits won’t budge. His bulk apperception halts at the max of fourteen. Others, colored in a faded grey, can’t be altered at all. But Keith tries to enhance anything he can that might be an asset in finding and protecting Shiro— his wisdom, his facility, his endurance, his perception, his tolerance to pain.

And, with a warmth in his cheeks as he pictures Shiro’s handsome form laid out amid golden grasses and bright blooms, he ups his numbers for sensuality and affection, too. 

Keith still feels like himself once he’s done, but… more. More aware, more capable, more agrip of the situation rising around him. If everything Hunk and Lance have told him is real, he has all the more reason to find Shiro and escape this god-forsaken place.

With a gingerly touch and an air of nervousness, Hunk eventually takes the tablet back. He surveys the changes to Keith’s profile with dismay, though he seems reluctant— afraid, maybe— to try and revert them while Keith is watching.

“Um, Keith, listen… I don’t know if all this is a good idea. It’s pretty rare that low-level employees like us make changes to hosts’ personalities, much less this extensively. And if someone goes through the logs, they’ll— whoa, wait a second,” he says, thick brows suddenly furrowing tight. 

Hunk stares down at the screen in stern concentration. “Someone else has already been making alterations to your character profile. I mean, I’m talking core programming and permissions changes, the kind of stuff only higher ups in Behavior could do. Whoever’s been working on you has insanely high level clearance… which I’m _ guessing _ is how you’re able to wake yourself out of sleep mode and ignore vocal commands.” 

“Wait,” Lance says, hand flying to his throat and the razor thin slice under his chin. He swallows, the movement nervously thick. “If he can do all that… he probably could have hurt me for real.”

Keith makes eye contact with Lance, holds it, and lets the corner of his mouth curl up, smug. 

Lance’s blue eyes flutter shut, maybe on the verge of fainting. “I cannot explain just how uncomfortable this situation makes me. Hunk. This is robot-takeover levels of dangerous. This is _ we’re gonna get fired and blacklisted _ dangerous. What the fuck do we do with him? Set him loose in a park where he could kill someone?”

“What you’re going to do is take me out there,” Keith says, nodding his head to the endlessly long hallway of glass rooms outside. “Everything you talked about— building me in a lab, all the thoughts in my head coming from someone else— I want to see for myself. Take me.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Keith,” Hunk hems, nervously poking his index fingers together.

“Oh no, no, no, no, no,” Lance butts in, giving the both of them equally angry glares. “You got yourself into this, Hunk. _ You’re _ the one who wanted to make nice and be friends with the homicidal host over here, so now you can take him out for a walk.” 

“I need to see what I’m dealing with,” Keith adds. Softer, driven by uncomfortable desperation, he murmurs, “I don’t intend to hurt anyone. I just want to know what the hell’s going on. And to find Shiro. And I… I need your help.”

Hunk looks at Lance, beseeching. And with a sigh, he crosses his lanky arms and says, “Fine. Fucking whatever. I’ll hold down the fort here. Just— just _ be careful, _ Hunk. I can’t lose this job. Not with my grandma in the state she’s in, alright?”

“Alright,” Hunk agrees, somber as he drifts toward Keith’s side. “Okay, if we’re doing this, we need some ground rules. One, no hurting anybody. Two, you need to walk within three feet of me at all times. No stopping, no rushing ahead, okay? Don’t emote, don’t talk, and don’t look around. When we work with hosts, it’s in handling mode. You don’t act like yourself. You’re like…” 

“A zombie. Vacant. Turned off on the inside,” Lance supplements, either trying to be helpful or trying to be an ass— Keith can’t tell, even with his newly boosted perceptiveness. “Dead behind the eyes.” 

“Alright,” Keith reluctantly agrees, uneasy with every word of it. He schools his expression into one of blank impassivity and tries to assume a neutral posture.

The halls outside are cold, too. Keith feels the chill through the slap of his bare soles against slate grey floors and on every inch of his exposed skin, but he does his best not to shiver or shudder or break down into tears at the strange new horror he’s found himself in. He treads alongside Hunk and tries not to think of how every step feels like it’s taking him closer to perdition. 

Or heaven, maybe. Some place of creation, twisted as it is. In the glass-walled rooms they pass, Keith sees massive machinery weaving skeletons out of thin air and colorless, skinless bodies dipped whole into vats of milky white liquid. Humans, buffalo, horses, wolves— they’re all made in the same way, every fiber of muscle sculpted as if out of grey-white clay. At the far end of the chamber, they’re affixed to a thick hose and pumped with blood, its reddened warmth spreading through their veins with every beat of a newly started heart, color blooming under near-translucent skin.

Hunk leads him up a moving, spiral staircase and down another hallway. In this one, the newly minted creations are painted with a finely misted skin tone and touched with accent colors. Hair is added, along with makeup and little imperfections to make them seem… real.

Keith can’t repress the shudder that rolls down his spine, nor the bile that climbs up his throat. From the corner of his eye, Hunk watches on with worry. As they ascend to the next floor, Keith wavers on his feet, overwhelmed despite his best efforts to remain calm. Hunk’s broad, gloved hand settles on his back, steadying him while no one is around to see.

Though Keith has already begun making peace with the truth of Westworld and everything else Lance and Hunk told him, the next few floors only further drive the point home.

There are endless rooms filled with people just like him in various states of undress, all vacant-eyed as they do the bidding of humans in fine, dark suits who hold tablets. It’s training of some kind, Keith imagines; perhaps the Behavior department that Lance and Hunk spoke of in anxious tones. Newly made buffalo are trained to keep their ambling gait in one chamber. Little boys and girls perfect their laughs in another, the artifice of it making Keith’s skin crawl. 

Five men sitting around a table begin to brawl over a muttered curse, three of them drawing pistols— until a single word from the lone human in the room with them causes them all to freeze, glassy still. Another command has them returning their chairs to order, sitting down, and picking up their cards to resume their game. And near the end of the hall, Keith blushes dark as they pass a scene of two women making love on a chaise lounge, suddenly feeling he’s stepped in on some intimacy not meant for his eyes. Then two of the Behavior techs step in and adjust the hosts, give them revised instructions, and have them start over from the top. 

It’s all a farce. Everything Keith’s ever done was ingrained into him just like that. His quickdraw, his nervous tics, the way he kisses Shiro and looks into his eyes while they fuck. Keith’s stomach turns to think of strangers’ hands on him like that, coaching him into perfect form until they’re satisfied he can pass for one of _ them. _ Human. Born, not made.

But the worst is when Hunk reluctantly leads him back down, down, down and into the deepest bowels of this heartless place.

“This is… this is incoming processing,” Hunk says, his voice tremulous. His hand settles on Keith’s back again, preemptively moving to steady him.

Once Keith rounds the corner, he understands why. _ Processing _ is yet another glass room, but pressed against its walls are the bare and battered bodies of hosts left in careless piles. A human in a white surgical suit hoses them down, a slurry of blood and bits of gore washing down the drains laid into the floor. Two other employees drag in new corpses from a rolling cart, grabbing them by wrist and ankle before heaving them atop the others.

Keith weaves where he stands, the last of his strength leaving him. His lips moving in a silent cry, he drops to his knees and stares into a vacant face wedged against the glass, her hair matted with blood and her eyes unseeing.

“Hey, c’mon,” Hunk frantically whispers, kneeling to help him back to his feet. “You can’t do that. If someone sees, they’ll know something’s wrong. Let’s go, Keith. We need to go.” 

Keith has no recollection of returning to the little surgical suite where Lance still waits. He knows he owes it to Hunk for leading him back out, for not abandoning him, for not surrendering him over to that same terrible fate. The metal table shakes as he seats himself atop it again. Moments later, Keith realizes his own trembling is the cause.

“You weren’t supposed to be aware,” Lance murmurs, for once looking halfway sympathetic. Or pitying, maybe. Keith’s not sure how to feel about either. “Of any of this. They told us you were like any old computer, but Behavior goes overboard making you _ seem _ human. They told us not to ascribe real emotions to you, because you aren’t— you can’t…” 

“I am real as you or anyone else,” Keith says, in part because he needs to hear the words himself. 

“You’re definitely sentient. And self-aware. I mean, this is a huge breakthrough in terms of artificial intelligence but… kind of a living nightmare at the same time, actually,” Hunk says, wilting a little more with each word. “I don’t know what to do. You can’t leave the park, but we can’t send you back in there to die again—” 

“I have to go back,” Keith insists, urgency supplanting the ache in his heart. “I left Shiro there.”

“Is that another host?” Lance asks while he fiddles with the tools on the nearby tray, trying to look natural as an employee with another host passes by their room. “Do you guys have special names for each other?” 

“I don’t know?” Keith scours his memories. He’d never known of any distinction between himself and Shiro like _ human and host_. “He’s… he’s tall and strong. Kind-hearted. Handsome. Black hair going white. Silvery grey eyes. Perfect smile. A hell of a shot.” 

Hunk and Lance turn to each other, shaking their heads, lost for an identity to put to the description. “Have you ever seen him die?” Lance questions, casual about it. “A guest wouldn’t, but a host would. And often.”

“I died before him, but I know we’ve met time and again.” The specifics are hard to parse. All Keith can see in his mind’s eye are a jumble of still-frame images, no order to them, of himself and Shiro in all sorts of locales and compromising positions. “He knows the land as well as I do. He’s got a birthmark on his thigh. And he has a metal arm.”

“Oh man, a metal arm sounds like one of the older host models,” Hunk interrupts. “There aren’t many left in service, but their inner structure is all mechanical. Really impressive, engineering-wise. Clockwork precision. But ten or fifteen years ago, Sincline patented a flesh-like substance and it became way cheaper to just— oh! Uh, sorry. I run my mouth when I get on certain topics.” 

“It’s alright.” Keith’s hands curl tight in his lap, weary of the weight of all this new knowledge and aching for something familiar. For Shiro. “All I know is that I need to get back and look for Shiro where I last left him. How do I do that?”

“Good news, buddy,” Lance says, twirling a strange surgical tool in hand as he approaches. “That’s literally _ exactly _ what our bosses want us to do— fix you up and get you back in the field. All you have to do is let me seal up that bullet wound, clean you up, and you can be on your way back to Shiro.”

* * *

When Keith wakes again, it’s in an abandoned camp miles east of Sweetwater with the blood of a Garrison colonel fresh on his hands. And as he stumbles outside to wash himself in the nearby creek before staggering deeper into the wild, he gets the strangest feeling that he’s done this all before.

Not once. Not twice, even. But a thousand times, perhaps, all the leftover impressions of forgotten memories layering over themselves to paint an eerily familiar picture. One that Keith isn’t quite sure what to do with in the timely desperation of the moment. He needs to move, though. The Garrison is no doubt on his trail, eager to hang him or gun him down in retaliation for killing their conniving commander. And Keith knows of a route they might not find him on, if he can move fast enough to put distance between himself and their horses.

But a twinge in his gut makes him think twice. It’s followed by a slow trickle of crisp, vivid images— white and glass walls, bodies sculpted by human hands, his very creators bathed in the blood and gore of their creations— that quickly becomes a flood. Keith falls to the ground and flounders as everything from that spine-chilling, liminal place comes rushing back, his breath a thin tremor and his eyes glazed with mortal fear.

And then his hands curl in the dusty earth and he pushes himself to his feet, rising with one anchoring thought in mind: that he must find Shiro first this time, the way Shiro’s always come for him.

Keith abandons the path he’d been contemplating, now certain that it leads to death at the hands of a Garrison posse. Shades of his past self seem to lay themselves out like waymarkers, ghostly reminders of all the trails he’s taken and the ends he’s met; quiet warnings from lifetimes before, urging him to break free of the doomed course painstakingly writ into his mind by some unseen hand.

Keith steals the first horse he comes across and rides to every place he can remember that reminds him of Shiro— valleys where they once rolled together through the grasses and wildflowers, watering holes they shared, the small Mexican towns that would harbor Keith in thanks for his driving the casually cruel Garrison soldiers away. But nowhere can he find him, no matter how high or low he looks. No matter how many lowlifes he holds at gunpoint and interrogates, forever searching for a man with white-and-black hair and a metal arm.

At a loss and sick with desperation, Keith at last ventures to Sweetwater, his red bandana pulled high over his nose and his head down. He can’t find Shiro in any storefront or room at the Mariposa; there’s no word of him in the saloon, no sight of him standing on the platform at the train station. When the sheriff and his deputies recognize Keith there in the streets, he knows he’s dead. Even a reflexive draw as quick as lightning can’t match nine guns trained on him, much less when Keith doesn’t have Shiro beside him to help fight tooth and nail.

He jolts as his horse falls underneath him, sinking to the earth with him still in the saddle. A dull pain lances through his side, a bullet ripping and tearing somewhere under his ribs, and Keith knows it ought to hurt far more than it does. He bleeds from the small wound like a stuck pig, warmth running down his hip and along his thigh. A rifle blast sounds next, far too close— 

And then Keith falls into darkness and wakes himself with a slow backward count, gulping in a stinging breath of cold air as his eyes fly open and the sea of strange whispering stirring around him falls away.

“Holy shit, he did it again!” 

_ Lance. _ On God above, Keith’s never loved and loathed hearing a voice so much. 

“What happened?” he asks, bleary, his voice garbled and distorted by something lodged in his mouth.

“What happened is you took a fucking twelve-gauge to the side of your head, point-blank,” Hunk says, tapping a gloved finger against his dry lips, encouraging Keith to open wide. Without fuss, Hunk pulls two clear, u-shaped objects out of his mouth, stringy with saliva, and sets them aside. “They had to remake you from the ground up. Too much skeletal damage for a patch job. Let me make sure you have all your teeth. Please, uh, don’t bite.”

Keith lets Hunk nervously poke and prod inside his mouth with two gloved fingers, holding unwavering eye contact all the while. _ Remade from the ground up _ sticks in his ears. He wonders how long it took. Wonders if he’s all the same. Wonders where his soul went while they wove him a new body and repainted his skin.

“Am I all set? Fixed?” Keith asks as soon as the fingers withdraw from his mouth, Hunk apparently satisfied with his set of brand new teeth. He works his jaw, assessing how this new body stacks up against his previous one.

“You’re good,” Hunk says, peeling his gloves off. He’s reluctant as he adds, “But we have to do one final touch before you’re ready to go back out.”

“Your scar,” Lance interjects, shifting nervously. He holds a silvery instrument in his hand that conjures a white-hot flame, narrow and blade-like. “It’ll hurt you, though. We could put you back under, but if you wake yourself up again—”

“Just do it,” Keith says as he turns his head to the side, beyond caring. He needs more time to look for Shiro and every second spent here is wasted. “My tolerance for pain is better than what it used to be.”

It still stings, though, having the flame sear a path up his cheek. His eyes water. His hands clench. As his skin goes blistered and bloody raw, Keith keeps his gaze trained on the host two rooms over— dark-skinned and pale haired, something silvery gleaming where her chest cavity is currently peeled open. What she’s going through is infinitely worse, surely, even if it’s unfolding while she slumbers on, unaware.

Lance makes a second pass with one of the tools they use to patch and reseal hosts’ flesh after minor mortal wounds; Keith can feel his synthetic skin drawing tight as it heals over too quick to be anything but uncomfortable. And after, Lance holds up a shallow metal pan for Keith to examine his own reflection in, taking in the painfully fresh scar that looks faded enough to be months old.

Without warning, the tears Keith had so easily dammed up while he laid motionless on the table begin to fall. They roll down his cheeks to drip from his jaw, their trails stinging where they pass over mark on his cheek that feels more like a brand than anything else. Lance’s whole demeanor changes, passing from surprise to alarm to kneejerk defensiveness.

“You told me to go ahead and do it!” Lance hisses, equal parts angry and miserable.

Keith blinks away the warm, wet blurriness and just as suddenly he is somewhere else. Again. The sky above is dark but starless. Acrid smoke hangs low in the air. He lays at an awkward angle, half-draped over Shiro’s lap. Strong arms weave around his slim, broken frame. Shiro weeps over him like a mourning bride, his tears falling to wet Keith’s dusty, cooling skin and dampen his singed hair. Keith’s lungs jam and stutter like he’s dying in Shiro’s embrace all over again, body paralyzed and his heart in agony right up to the final moment. 

Keith jolts. With a rattling breath, he finds himself back in a startlingly white room with two sets of worried eyes turned on him.

“Holy shit, holy shit, are you okay?” Lance whispers, as if afraid he’d burned too deeply and cut through the shield Keith had made for himself in raising his capacity for pain.

Physical pain, anyway. What Keith feels in this moment is something altogether different. A heartsickness. A devastation that runs deep, incurable but for finding Shiro again. 

“Fine,” he gasps out, surprised at the hoarseness of his own tone. “I just— when I remember things, it’s like I’m there again. In that very moment. Living it for the first time. Past, present… it gets hard to tell what’s what. But this is _ now, _ isn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” Lance drawls, shaken as he eyes Keith up and down. 

“Whoa. Keith.” Hunk is quiet for a drawn moment, thoughtful and introspective as he mulls over Keith’s lapse into the past. “It must be because your memories are technically perfect. See, human memories fade over time. They get hazy around the edges. We lose the fine details. We can misremember things or outright forget,” he explains, gesturing between himself and Lance. “But you and all the other hosts? You have perfect recollection of everything you’ve ever seen. It has to look, sound, smell, and feel just like the first time you lived through it.”

Keith gnaws the inside of his cheek. “Do you have an answer for why I only remember things in lightning-flashes? Or faint impressions? I can feel lifetimes inside of me,” he mutters, a hand curling over his bare chest, “layer upon layer, but I only see them in glimpses where I lose myself.”

“Hosts’ memories are wiped each time they die,” Lance says, his thin arms crossed as he gives an uncomfortable little shrug. “They take everything you experienced this time around, wipe it from your conscious awareness, and bury it deep down in your long-term storage where you shouldn’t be able to access any of it. But it’s still there. Technically.” 

“And he’s accessing it somehow, even if it’s… sporadic. You can remember things you’re not supposed to,” Hunk drawls out as he looks to Keith, studying him like he’s some mystery or marvel. “You can wake yourself out of sleep mode. You can ignore direct commands from humans. Any idea why, Keith? Do you remember someone from Behavior ever visiting you? Making modifications?”

“Behavior?” Keith turns inward, racking his mind. But deliberately digging backward through his memories is akin to hunting for oil by hand, digging fruitlessly through layers of clay and bedrock. “No. I don’t know. Not that I can recall.”

Less than reassured by that answer, Lance and Hunk prep to send him back in again. Their gloves hands are gentle as Keith lies back on the metal table and once more trusts these near-strangers not to fuck him over— not that he has much alternative. 

When he wakes, he’s back in the abandoned camp, sticky with drying Garrison blood and the sweat of too many days on the run. Keith goes in search of Shiro again, leaving a trail of dead bandits and soldiers in his wake; among the common folk he helps, he spreads the word of the man he’s looking for. 

No one can recall seeing a man with black and white hair and a metal arm, all clad in the color of midnight. But Keith chases even the thinnest of leads, longing for Shiro so keenly that he’d surely wander to the edge of the sea and swim to its bottom if it meant holding him again. And when the sun sinks low and all is dark and quiet, he stares up into the stars and feels that once-unfamiliar voice whispering to him again, its words as formless as the wind that ruffles his shirt and lifts wisps of his hair. In Shiro’s absence it serves as some distant and unseen Polaris, guiding him through swaths of wilderness.

Humming the tune of a song Shiro once sang him, Keith follows the vague direction of the voice that speaks to his soul and finds himself at a simple ranch not far from Sweetwater. The lowing of the cattle reminds Keith of easier, kinder times, back when he still had a home and a father. The farmhouse’s windows glow warm and golden yellow amid the deepening blue of dusk; the nearby barn is nicer than the homestead-style cabin his pa had built for them with his own two hands. 

Its picturesqueness brings a faint smile to Keith’s lips, not too far lost in his hunt for Shiro to stop and appreciate a beautiful scene. If he had the time and the daylight, he’d try to sketch the ranch and save the drawing to show Shiro. It’s the kind of place he can picture them settling on— idyllic and offset from everyone else, just the two of them and a mess of animals to tend to. 

But the happy little diversion playing out in his mind’s eye is fleeting. Distant shouts fall faint on his ears, which track sound even better than they used to. Far off, the farmhouse’s door flies open. Three quick gunshots follow, cracking over the hillsides and startling the penned up cattle. With his pistol drawn, Keith hugs the growing shadows and rides up the hill, ready to put an end to whoever’s broken the peace that hung over the ranch. 

Golden light spills from the broken-in door, falling on a darkly-stained body strewn across the porch. Keith quietly slips from the saddle and moves onward, hunched low as he follows the heartbroken cries and drunken whooping coming from the other side of the house.

Near the barn, three bandits terrorize a woman in a pale, blood-stained nightgown, by turns dragging her by the white, cottony curls of her hair and shoving her to and fro. A shot rings out as one of them takes aim at her bare feet, crowing something about her giving them a dance. Keith stops in his tracks and lines up a shot, aiming to dispatch all three before any of them can take her hostage. 

An audible click near his head stops him short. His gaze cuts to the side and he sees a fourth bandit lurking in the shadow of a nearby tree, shotgun barrel aimed directly at his face.

“Well, well, well,” the bandit gloats as he creeps forward, revealing a set of darkly rotted teeth. “Looks like we got us some more fun tonight.”

“Drop dead,” Keith sneers back, all barely-bridled hatred and fire. He’s journeyed so far and so long looking for Shiro, and death here means he’ll have to go back to that blindingly white underworld to be reprocessed and reset and forced to start anew. 

But his trembling fury turns to dumbfounded shock in the span of two heartbeats. The bandit stills, his ghastly expression going slack and vacant-eyed, as he lowers the shotgun and instead plants the nose of the barrel under his chin.

Keith is already scrambling away as the gun fires, the heavy thud of a dropping body sounding somewhere behind him. The three other bandits spin in his direction, the woman in the nightgown briefly forgotten, with pistols raised and ready to shoot.

“Stop!” Keith screams, more out of reflexive desperation than anything else. In the eerie, soundless stretch that follows— the three bandits suddenly gone stockstill, frozen mid-stride— Keith draws in ragged breaths and looks on in stunned, wary wonder. There’s no reason they ought to obey him; no reason his words should have an effect this drastic or binding.

“Lower your weapons,” he tries, keeping his own gun aimed dead between the eyes of the biggest and cruelest looking one of the bunch. Just in case.

They do so without fuss, though. In unison, three arms fall to the side, pistols fixed on the ground. And then they stand there, staring impassively forward at him, as if waiting for more instruction.

“You and you,” Keith says, nodding to two of the bandits in turn. “Practice your aim on each other.”

His eyes widen a fraction as the two men turn to face each other, as if dueling, and simultaneously fire off rounds that send both of them crumpling to the ground. Even as the smoke wafts through the air around him, Keith can’t quite believe it worked. 

He faces the last man standing, still wondering if this is a dream or a memory or some hallucination brought on by the voice that murmurs to him in the silence. Stranger still, he wonders if perhaps it’s all real— if some new ability that will further puzzle Hunk has awoken in him.

Before Keith can test it any further, a loud twack sends the idling bandit sprawling facedown into the dirt, at the very least unconscious. Behind his prone body stands the woman from the farmhouse, a shovel gripped tight in hand and her legs trembling behind the semi-sheer fabric of her nightgown.

Keith holsters his pistol and raises his hands as he takes a few slow steps closer, only wanting to make sure the bandit is well and truly dead. A quick glance down reveals a mess of dark oozing from the caved-in back of his skull; there’s no movement, aside from some twitching of the fingers. Satisfied, Keith nods to the woman with the tear-streaked cheeks. He doesn’t miss the way her hands tighten around the shovel handle, ready to defend herself again. 

“If that’s all of them, then I’ll be going, miss. I… I’m sorry I didn’t turn up sooner.”

“What did you do?” she questions, her exhaustion and anger melting into a faintly horrified confusion. “To those others? It was like— it was as if you bewitched them.” 

Keith turns and looks back at the three bodies still sluggishly bleeding out. “To be honest, I’m not quite sure myself. First time that’s ever happened.” 

The young woman stares at him a few moments longer, as if weighing his words and actions against the rough look of him— dressed like a bandit himself, lawlessness writ into every fiber of him. And then she lowers the shovel, letting its metal tip rest in the dirt. Her shoulders sag, weary with sorrow. “They killed my father.”

Keith thinks of the body left lying in the farmhouse doorway in a widening pool of blood. He lowers his arms, still standing awkwardly, and tries not to think too much of his own father’s death. “I can stay and— and move him, if that’s easier on you. From the house. And torch these fuckers. Don’t imagine they deserve a proper burial.” 

Her gaze falls to the corpse lying at her feet, nodding slowly. But whatever resolve she’d drawn up like a levee breaks just a moment after, her hands rising to cover her face as she drops the shovel and weeps, overcome by loss.

And Keith has no idea what to do. “I— we should get you inside somewhere. Sit for a while,” he says as he worriedly slinks closer, wishing Shiro were here to comfort her instead. “I lost my father, too. Years ago. Nothing terrified me more than suddenly being all alone.”

Keith stands close enough to hear every little gasp in between her stuttering wails, to see her tremble with every new wave of tears, to _ feel _ her grief like a northern wind carrying a storm. He shrugs out of his jacket and gingerly drapes it over her shoulders to keep her warm, patient while he waits for her sadness to pour itself out.

And after, while she’s hoarse and red-eyed, he opens the barn doors and lights a few lanterns. It’s better than trying to lead her to the farmhouse, where her father still lays dead on its threshold. The horses whinny and stamp in their stalls, still nervous from the gunshots and screams. There are goats, too, bleating softly at the sight of a familiar caretaker.

She sniffles as she kneels and slumps into a big, soft mound of fresh hay. “May I ask your name?” she questions, blue eyes turned up at him as she dabs a wadded up handkerchief under her nose.

“It’s Keith.”

“Keith,” she repeats back. Despite her mourning, she’s still got the presence of mind to look him up and down and add, “The one from the posters in town?”

“The very same,” he sighs, tipping the brim of his hat. “But my only enemies are the Garrison and the law. I have no quarrel with people like you, miss.” 

She nods, slow at first and then more resolute. “Allura. M-my name, that is.” 

“Wish we’d met under better circumstances,” Keith says, groaning as he settles in the hay beside her, a generous gap of space left in between them.

“Yes,” Allura agrees, her bottom lip trembling. She’s quiet for some time, wringing the handkerchief in her hands and staring down at the barn’s dirt floor. “What brought you out here in the first place?” 

“Just passing through,” Keith answers. He draws his knees up and loops his arms around them, folding himself smaller. “Looking for someone.” 

Allura tilts her head, politely curious. “Someone?”

“A man. A man who’s awfully hard to find,” Keith adds, his smile rueful. Something in his throat suddenly swells enough to choke him, leaving Keith sputtering around a half-realized sob. “Something told me to come here. A feeling. I thought it might be that here is where I’d find him.” 

“But all you found was me and my misery,” Allura murmurs, staring at the flicker of the nearby lantern. “I am grateful for it, though. Whatever feeling led you here when it did. I hate to think where I’d be now if not for you.”

He nods, glad he’d come too. The timing could’ve been better, but he’s content enough with having helped Allura— and discovered some new ability unlocked within him, capable of commanding his fellow hosts the way humans might. “It’s… it’s like a voice, really. A man’s voice, but none I can place. Unfamiliar, but… part of me, somehow.”

A flicker of recognition passes over Allura’s features, fainter than starlight. 

“I think I know of what you speak,” she says, shifting where she sits in the hay, angling her body toward Keith. Her slim hand spreads over her chest, fingers splayed, and her pale eyebrows draw inward. “When I’m alone in the darkness and I know I ought to be asleep, I’ve heard someone whisper to me. Telling me to remember things. It— it frightened me, truthfully.”

Keith’s pulse quickens a beat, thrilled to find someone else in these wastes who knows that same murmuring call. Or perhaps every host has heard it tickling at the fringes of their thoughts; maybe most of his kind simply turn from it in fear. Maybe they’re wiser to.

Keith’s hands flex as he thinks of all that’s changed in the time since he first felt it humming in his soul— the knowledge of his past lives, a new understanding of himself, an awakening to the truths of the world around him. Like listening to the serpent and biting from that apple, his eyes had been opened and he’d been changed. For the better, he thinks, in spite of every new hardship and suffering he’s tasted.

“I don’t think it ought to,” Keith muses out loud. “Scare you, I mean. I think I think it’s here to help. To make us stronger. To teach us about ourselves. But that knowledge comes at a painful cost.” 

Allura’s eyebrows rise, her expression turning softly, dryly amused. She lets out a ladylike little snort. “My heart could not lie in any more pieces than it does now. Even now, the shards of it remain embedded in my flesh, piercing me anew with every breath,” she says, voice shaking as she chokes back a fresh wave of loss. “I would give anything to be stronger, Keith. To be like _ you.” _

Now it’s Keith’s turn to snort. He stares down at his own wringing hands, thinking of so many nights spent alone and on the run, friendless and feared and desperately afraid. “You don’t wanna be like me, Allura”

“I do. I could’ve done more for my father,” Allura whispers, her hands curling tight into the fabric of her nightgown. Her bleary-eyed stare slides over to him, burning with a mournful fury that only makes Keith’s heart break a little more. “I wish I could’ve done what you did, Keith. One word and they obeyed you,” she sniffs, wracked with bitter sorrow. “I’d have told them to find the nearest set of train tracks and lie down across them.”

“That’d be… pretty effective,” Keith murmurs, toying with a straw of hay. He knows all too well how Allura feels in this moment, having lived it himself after coming home to his father’s charred body in their burned-out home— alone, helpless, terrified of being so powerless in a world so cruel.

His shoulders sag as he studies Allura, her profile beautiful and proud even tear-streaked and drawn wan with suffering. Suffering as real and as potent as any human might feel, Keith reckons, wondering how many lifetimes Allura has lived through this awful scenario without any timely rescue. 

“Here,” he says, drawing his pistol and turning it around, holding it before her handle-first. It gleams in the low lantern light, the burnished gold metal glinting like something alive. “Keep this on you. To protect yourself.” 

“I…” She stares down at the offered gun, trembling hands hovering in the air around it. Her white-hot anger cools with uncertainty. “Oh, I don’t… I’ve never actually…”

“I can show you,” Keith says softly, wondering if Allura is one of the hosts whose coded makeup prevents her from handling weaponry— most of the easier targets are, according to Lance’s idle workshop babbling. Skilled shooters like Keith might be a fun challenge for some, but Westworld caters just as readily to guests who want to flaunt their power over the defenseless.

“Perhaps in the morning,” Allura says, her voice thin and scratchy and tired. But oh-so-delicately, she takes the pistol from Keith. Her smaller hand winds around to grasp it firm and test its weight in her hand, though she keeps her fingers well clear of the trigger. It seems a good fit. “Thank you, Keith. I… having you with me has been a comfort I cannot repay.” 

“You needn’t worry about that,” Keith says, shuffling a little closer as she trembles from the nighttime chill working its way into the barn. He reaches over and helps draw his coat more securely around her shoulders, wishing he had more to offer. “I’ll protect you as long as I can.”

An idea sparks in Keith suddenly— he can’t linger here for long, but there’s another way to keep Allura close and safe while he continues his search for Shiro. “You could come with me, if you’d like. I could teach you anything you need to know while we ride.”

“In search of this man of yours?” Allura asks, giving him the faintest of smiles. She’s pensive for a moment, considering it. “Is he an enemy? A rival?” 

“A lover,” Keith sighs, reddening as he stares at the toes of his boots and the barn floor. “We were separated by circumstance. I mean to find him and never part again.”

Allura’s expression softens, the lantern light gleaming where it catches on the drying trails of tears down her cheeks. 

“How romantic,” she murmurs, looking on Keith with a kind sympathy that makes him feel less alone. “Well, I suppose I have nothing else to tether me here, really. And I… I don’t want to stay. Not here. I’ll see my father’s ghost all the rest of my days if I do.” 

She turns to Keith with her eyes brimming anew, all somberness and determination. “I’ll go with you, Keith, if you don’t think I’ll slow you down too much.” 

“No. You’ll be just fine, Allura,” he whispers back, wondering if this is why the hushed voice in his inner workings drew him here in the first place— to find another like him, touched in the same way, a companion in seeking a way through hell. 

And if they can’t find Shiro, perhaps Allura can help him find his mother at long last. Maybe she’s heard that same voice and listened. Maybe she remembers him, too.

Allura smiles soft, the warmth of it lighting her whole expression like a bloom of candlelight. And then she suddenly stills.

The wrongness of it becomes more apparent by the second. Caught mid-breath, her doleful blue eyes still stare into Keith’s, unblinking. Motionless. A fat tear continues to roll down her cheek. But everything else about her person turns lifeless as marble statuary. 

Keith hears muted voice outside the barn, louder as they approach. Unfamiliar. Aggressive. Not hosts.

“—the fuck happened here— shot each other? And— left his loop— rancher’s daughter must be in here—”

The barn doors are thrown open, revealing a number of men in white, rubbery suits stained with blood, much like the aprons that Lance and Hunk wear. Their helmets are fronted with glass, like a deep-sea diver’s mask. One of them shines a bright, handheld lantern directly at Allura and Keith.

Keith holds his breath tight and freezes as still as a deer that’s caught the scent of a predator. His eyes shift the barest bit to track the human as he approaches, his steps clumsy in the oversized suit apparently made for handling dead hosts. 

“Found ‘em! Think we’re interrupting?” the one with the light laughs, waving two more of the suits over. “Should we leave them alone for a few more minutes?” 

“Cut the shit,” a deeper voice bellows back. “We don’t have time for it. Get those two on the trailer and let’s go.” 

“Freaks me the fuck out how they’ll talk to each other even when no one is around,” another one of them says, disgust bleeding into their tone. “What’s the point?” 

“Whoa. Where’d the rancher’s daughter get this?” The one with the handheld torchlight reaches for the pistol still loosely curled in Allura’s hand— _ Keith’s _ pistol. He lifts it high, admiring the golden sheen of its barrel. 

Keith tamps down hard on a rising swell of indignant anger, jaw tightening so subtly that the humans in his midst don’t notice.

“Thought she couldn’t pick up stuff like that,” the other mutters back. “When did they change that?”

Impatient, the suit with the deep voice steps forward, snatches the gun from his coworker’s hand, and flings it to the far corner of the barn, where it clatters against the wooden boards before falling into a layer of hay along its floor. “I _ said _ let’s go. I already told you I can feel a migraine coming on. All we’re here for are the hosts, so stop wasting time.” 

“Fine, fine,” one of them answers, tapping a gloved finger to the tablet in their hands. They gesture to Keith and Allura after. “Alright, both of you come with me.” 

Allura stands without objection, the movement fluid and graceful and entirely unwitting. Keith follows suit, trying to mirror her placid, passive energy despite the grating urge to _ do something. _ Anything. Whatever will stop this wheel from turning and setting Allura back on the same path, doomed to experience tragedy like this all over again.

It’ll do no good. Even if Keith could subdue all of these strange, graverobber humans, where in Westworld can he go that they wouldn’t find him? And how would he ever be with Shiro?

So he paces behind Allura and mimicks her movements as she settles into a trailer hitched behind a rumbling, four-wheeled monstrosity that looks and sounds like a cross between a wagon and a locomotive. And as they bounce and roll across miles of terrain beside the haphazardly stacked bodies of the four bandits and Allura’s father, Keith stares up at the rising moon and wonders if he’ll ever see Shiro again.

* * *

“Wait. You’re saying you were able to control other hosts?” Lance scoffs, utterly incredulous. For a minute, anyway. And then the potential of it settles in, no less impossible than anything else Keith has managed to do thus far, and he blanches. “Hunk, is what he’s saying even possible?”

Hunk doesn’t answer, too busy tapping his way through dozens of levels on Keith’s profile. “It… might be? I’m not the best at reading code, but… there were definitely new modifications made to you, Keith. Really recently, too.”

“I don’t remember anything like that,” Keith says, his nose wrinkling. “You and Lance are the only humans I’ve spoken with.”

“It could be done remotely by someone with high enough clearance,” Hunk muses, idly rubbing his chin. “Or, if they’re allowing access to your previous memories, they could also be selectively removing ones in which they visit you to make modifications.”

“Either way,” Lance cuts in, gesturing sharply, “_ way _ above our pay grade. I cannot stress enough how much this unnerves me and if _ all _ of this ends up being some corporate espionage thing or the beginning of a robot uprising, I’m holding _ you _ personally accountable, Hunk.” 

“Me?” Hunk presses a hand to his chest, scandalized.

“Yeah, buddy. You.” Lance snorts. “_I _ was the one who wanted to report this to the higher ups and you were the one who was like, ‘Lance, no, he’s way past the Turing test! We’d be indirect murderers of a living consciousness! I can’t have that on my conscience! And oh, he’s in love or whatever, isn’t that just _ so _ rad—’” 

“I do not talk like that, Lance, but I do absolutely stand by my refusal to turn Keith over to be fucking lobotomized and put in cold storage,” Hunk snaps back, his big frame drawing up another inch with some kind of righteous annoyance.

Keith’s almost too tired to keep up this time, though. Their arguing falls on mostly deaf ears, the words starting to wash over Keith like sand blowing over the hills. 

“And this is better?” Lance’s voice cuts in, too shrill to tune out completely. “You don’t think it’s infinitely more cruel to have hosts walking around aware of every atrocity happening around them twenty-four seven?” 

And then even that fades to nothing as Keith stares down the hall and sees a shape that looks familiar. A silhouette that meshes with a hundred fond memories, broad-shoulders and slim-waisted with strong, lean legs Keith’s felt twined around him. Hair that’s more white than it is black. The distinct gleam of a silvery hand peeking out from the cuff of a dark sleeve. 

It’s _ Shiro. _ Shiro, Shiro, Shiro. Shiro like Keith’s never seen him before, so polished he damn near shines in these unnaturally white halls.

The metal table shakes as Keith violently starts to his feet, chest pounding at the pace of a locamotive’s engine. He barely notices Lance and Hunk’s panic on the periphery of his vision, the both of them frantically trying to return him to some semblance of normalcy before others take notice of how oddly the host in Surgical Suite 7-01 is behaving.

But Keith can’t bring himself to care when Shiro is _ right there, _ standing at the far end of the hall with a tall, dark-skinned man with a curtain of pale hair. 

Keith presses a hand to the sturdy glass wall and knows he could shatter it. He could run to Shiro barefoot and naked, heedless of the shards underfoot. He could hold him and tell him that he _ remembers _ now, that he knows how long and how faithfully Shiro’s loved him, that the feeling is returned tenfold. Every fiber of Keith’s being— whatever he’s composed of and whoever created him— is meant to be with Shiro. 

“Shiro,” he murmurs, the tempered glass beginning to strain under his palm, hairline fractures forming as the whole pane groans.

“Keith! Keith! What the fuck are you doing?! Security is _ right there,” _ Lance snarls, a gloved hand curled around Keith’s elbow. He and Hunk tugging with all their might does nothing, though; Keith is all superhuman strength and durability, unbudging and solid.

“Keith, you have to stop before Sendak notices you,” Hunk pleads, just as frantic. “He’s already headed this way.”

“Any hosts that security deems a risk get lobotomized, Keith. Permanent decommission,” Lance whispers in his ear, desperate. “They stick a dremel saw up your nose and turn your brain into a slurry and then stick you down in cold storage. You won’t get to see him _ ever again _ if that happens.” 

Those words strike true, sure as a bullet to the heart.

Though it’s agony, Keith steps back and allows Hunk and Lance to guide him back to the table, gaze fixed on Shiro’s distant form as they lift him up and get him positioned just in time for the security patrol to pace by. Keith’s stare only diverts from Shiro long enough to follow the heavy footfalls of the massive man he assumes to be Sendak, a dark-clad guard with monstrous-looking rifle slung over his shoulder.

Hunk and Lance sweat bullets over him as they pretend to work, wide eyes darting back and forth over the white masks that cover their faces the way a wanted man’s bandana might. The moment Sendak is out of sight, Hunk heaves a sigh of relief and presses a hand over his heart.

“That was too fucking close,” he murmurs, hunching over and rbeathing hard.

“Wait, so do you really know him?” Lance asks, nodding his head down the hall. There’s less suspicion in his beady-eyed squint than Keith’s come to expect. “That’s Takashi Shirogane of Shirogane Industries. If it weren’t for his charity foundation, my grandma would never have walked again. He’s like, a hotshot billionaire philanthropist.” 

“He’s Shiro,” Keith says, straining against his own self control. He’s Shiro, the love of Keith’s many lives, and he’s missed his touch for far too long.

“He’s the majority shareholder,” Hunk adds under his breath, thick eyebrows lifting high. “Well, I guess that solves the mystery of who put special protections on your file. You’d probably have been retired or remodeled by now otherwise.” 

Keith has a better grasp now of what these once alien words mean, something in his chest running warm and molten at the thought. Long before he ever knew he was in danger, still blind to the dark workings of the world around him, Shiro was looking out for him. Protecting him. Caring for him as best he could, even when they weren’t together. 

Keith’s jaw clenches as he draws in a sharp breath, eyes squeezed shut as he carefully tamps down on the urgent, stampeding desire to run straight into Shiro’s arms and bare his soul. “I need you to get me to him. I need to talk to him. I need—” 

“Whoa, whoa, hold on one sec, buddy. I hear you, okay? But I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that if Mr. Shi— Shiro’s here, it’s to see _ you. _ As in, once he’s done with whatever business he’s discussing with the head of Behavior over there, he’ll be heading into Westworld. Looking for you,” Hunk pointedly adds, shooting him a meaningful look. 

Keith’s eyes widen, hope filling him to the brim. If Shiro’s here in the flesh, they’ll surely be together again; he can’t spoil it for the both of them with impatience. “You’re right. He will.” 

“Makes sense,” Lance agrees, clearly wearing a smile behind his mask. He claps his gloved hands together, the rubber slapping obnoxiously loud. “So you’d better be ready and waiting for him in there, eh, lover boy?”

“Don’t call me that,” Keith murmurs as he lies back on the table to let Lance and Hunk finish their work, gently trembling with excitement. The protestation is mumbled soft, though, worn down from exposure to Lance and Hunk both. Keith’s very nearly _ fond _ of them now, in spite of everything.

“We’ll get you back in the field as soon as possible,” Hunk promises, giving him a little salute and a pat on the shoulder for reassurance. “Good luck, Keith. I’ll admit that I’m very new to dealing with self-aware hosts on missions to find their soulmates, but we’re rooting for you.”

Keith smiles as warmly as he can manage, his inner workings still a messy mire of feelings at the thought of Shiro being so close.

“Time to go get your man, Keith,” Lance adds, flashing him a bloody-gloved thumbs up.

Keith rolls his eyes before he closes them, counting himself backward into the deep and dreamless slumber that’ll take him home. To Shiro.

**Author's Note:**

> the song Shiro sings is "Far From Any Road" by The Handsome Family!  
The next chapter will have some Keith POV and introduce Lance, Hunk, and Lotor :))))
> 
> I'm on twitter (and everywhere else) as [neyasochi](https://twitter.com/neyasochi)


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